Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2010
The tight-binding model is used to inquire the uniaxial strain effect on the electronic structure of 2D graphene sheet and quasi-1D armchair graphene nanoribbons. The dependence of Dirac points and gap on the uniaxial strain is investigated. The band edges deviate from the corners of the first Brillouin Zone (BZ) gradually with the strain applied. The gap can be opened only when graphene sheet is highly strained. The threshold of the gap induced by strain along armchair directions distinguishes from that by strain along zigzag direction. A controlled strain can be applied to achieve the semiconductor-metal transition in armchair graphene ribbons.