Large-scale solution synthesis of narrow graphene nanoribbons

• Published in: Nature communications 2014-02, Vol.5 (1), p.3189-3189
• Main Authors: Vo, Timothy H., Shekhirev, Mikhail, Kunkel, Donna A., Morton, Martha D., Berglund, Eric, Kong, Lingmei, Wilson, Peter M., Dowben, Peter A., Enders, Axel, Sinitskii, Alexander
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/301/357/551; 639/925/357/918; Graphene; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Silicon; Single crystals
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4189

According to theoretical studies, narrow graphene nanoribbons with atomically precise armchair edges and widths of 10 nm and have limited control over their edge structure. Here we demonstrate a novel bottom–up approach that yields gram quantities of high-aspect-ratio graphene nanoribbons, which are only ~1 nm wide and have atomically smooth armchair edges. These ribbons are shown to have a large electronic bandgap of ~1.3 eV, which is significantly higher than any value reported so far in experimental studies of graphene nanoribbons prepared by top–down approaches. These synthetic ribbons could have lengths of >100 nm and self-assemble in highly ordered few-micrometer-long ‘nanobelts’ that can be visualized by conventional microscopy techniques, and potentially used for the fabrication of electronic devices. Theory predicts that graphene nanoribbons with width less than 2 nm exhibit bandgaps comparable to silicon, but the fabrication is challenging. Vo et al. report a bottom–up approach to synthesize bulk quantities of these materials with a bandgap of ~1.3 eV, potentially useful for electronic devices.