Graphene based ballistic rectifiers

Despite having the longest mean-free-path of carriers in all electronic materials, it has been virtually impossible to demonstrate graphene ballistic devices due to the rather diffusive and hence random scattering of carriers from the edges. Hence we show that this may not be true in the nonlinear transport regime in a nanodevice called ballistic rectifier. In contrast to a conventional transistor, the ballistic rectifier does not necessarily require a sizable bandgap. Here, we not only demonstrate rectifying effect at room temperature but also indicate that the carrier scattering from graphene edges in the nonlinear regime may be more specularly than previous discovered in the linear regime.