Electron-phonon coupling in armchair silicene nanoribbons

•We find that the charge distribution in nanoribbons of silicene is analogous to graphene nanoribbons.•The charge localization in nanoribbons of silicene increases when the intensity of electron-phonon coupling increases.•Silicene nanoribbons may be a conducting or semiconducting, depending both on the nanoribbon width and the polaron formation.•Additional insight into the behavior of polarons in silicene nanoribbons is provided in this work. We report the effects of electron-phonon coupling on the charge density distribution of polarons in armchair nanoribbons of silicene by using an extended tight-binding model with lattice relaxation. The results show that the charge distribution in silicene nanoribbons is analogous to graphene and that the charge localization increases when the intensity of electron-phonon coupling also increases. We further show that silicene nanoribbons may be a conducting or semiconducting material, depending on both the width of the nanoribbon and the possibility of polaron formation. This contribution provides additional insight into the behavior of polarons in silicene nanoribbons, systems of great interest.