Transport in armchair graphene nanoribbons and in ordinary waveguides*

We study dc and ac transport along armchair graphene nanoribbons using the k.p spectrum and eigenfunctions and general linear-response expressions for the conductivities. Then, we contrast the results with those for transport along ordinary waveguides. In all cases, we assess the influence of elastic scattering by impurities, describe it quantitatively with a Drude-type contribution to the current previously not reported, and evaluate the corresponding relaxation time for long- and short-range impurity potentials. We show that this contribution dominates the response at very low frequencies. In both cases, the conductivities increase with the electron density and show cusps when new subbands start being occupied. As functions of the frequency, the conductivities in armchair graphene nanoribbons exhibit a much richer peak structure than in ordinary waveguides: in the former, intraband and interband transitions are allowed, whereas in the latter, only the intraband ones occur. This difference can be traced to that between the corresponding spectra and eigenfunctions.