Electronic Transport of a Molecular Photoswitch with Graphene Nanoribbon Electrodes

Based on non-equilibrium Green's function formalism and density functional theory calculations, we investigate the electronic transport properties of 15,16-dinitrile dihydropyrene/cyclophanediene bridged between two zigzag graphene nanoribbon electrodes. Our results demonstrate that the system can exhibit good switching behavior with the maximum on-off ratio high up to 146 which is improved dramatically compared with the case of gold electrodes. Moreover, an obvious negative differential resistance behavior occurs at 0.3 V, making the system have more potential in near future molecular circuits.