Optical properties of graphene nanoribbons: the role of many-body effects

We investigate from first principles the optoelectronic properties of nanometer-sized armchair graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). We show that many-body effects are essential to correctly describe both energy gaps and optical response. As a signature of the confined geometry, we observe strongly bound excitons dominating the optical spectra, with a clear family dependent binding energy. Our results demonstrate that GNRs constitute 1D nanostructures whose absorption and luminescence performance can be controlled by changing both family and edge termination.