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Title: On-Surface Synthesis and Characterization of 9-Atom Wide Armchair Graphene Nanoribbons

Journal Article · · ACS Nano
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5];  [6];  [6];  [7];  [2]; ORCiD logo [2];  [8]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) (Switzerland). nanotech@surfaces Laboratory
  2. Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Germany)
  3. Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) (Switzerland). nanotech@surfaces Laboratory and NCCR MARVEL
  4. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (United States). Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy; Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Science (CNMS)
  5. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (United States). Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy
  6. Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland). Swiss Light Source
  7. Dresden Univ. of Technology (Germany). Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden and Department of Chemistry and Food Chemistry
  8. Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) (Switzerland). nanotech@surfaces Laboratory; University of Bern (Switzerland). Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

The bottom-up approach to synthesize graphene nanoribbons strives not only to introduce a band gap into the electronic structure of graphene but also to accurately tune its value by designing both the width and edge structure of the ribbons with atomic precision. Within this paper, we report the synthesis of an armchair graphene nanoribbon with a width of nine carbon atoms on Au(111) through surface-assisted aryl–aryl coupling and subsequent cyclodehydrogenation of a properly chosen molecular precursor. By combining high-resolution atomic force microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, we demonstrate that the atomic structure of the fabricated ribbons is exactly as designed. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and Fourier-transformed scanning tunneling spectroscopy reveal an electronic band gap of 1.4 eV and effective masses of ≈0.1 me for both electrons and holes, constituting a substantial improvement over previous efforts toward the development of transistor applications. We use ab initio calculations to gain insight into the dependence of the Raman spectra on excitation wavelength as well as to rationalize the symmetry-dependent contribution of the ribbons’ electronic states to the tunneling current. Lastly, we propose a simple rule for the visibility of frontier electronic bands of armchair graphene nanoribbons in scanning tunneling spectroscopy.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1346658
Journal Information:
ACS Nano, Vol. 11, Issue 2; ISSN 1936-0851
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 220 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (44)

Plasmon oscillations in two-dimensional arrays of ultranarrow graphene nanoribbons journal December 2019
On‐Surface Synthesis of 8‐ and 10‐Armchair Graphene Nanoribbons journal March 2019
Alignment of semiconducting graphene nanoribbons on vicinal Ge(001) journal January 2019
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the graphene era journal June 2019
Topological band engineering of graphene nanoribbons journal August 2018
Electronic transport in planar atomic-scale structures measured by two-probe scanning tunneling spectroscopy journal April 2019
On‐Surface Synthesis and Spectroscopic Characterization of Laterally Extended Chevron Graphene Nanoribbons journal June 2019
Solution and on-surface synthesis of structurally defined graphene nanoribbons as a new family of semiconductors journal January 2019
Optimized Substrates and Measurement Approaches for Raman Spectroscopy of Graphene Nanoribbons journal November 2019
On-Surface Synthesis of Carbon Nanostructures journal March 2018
Short-channel field-effect transistors with 9-atom and 13-atom wide graphene nanoribbons journal September 2017
Nanostructured Graphene: An Active Component in Optoelectronic Devices journal May 2018
Termini effects on the optical properties of graphene nanoribbons journal November 2018
Spin–orbit coupling prevents spin channel suppression of transition metal atoms on armchair graphene nanoribbons journal January 2018
Production and processing of graphene and related materials journal January 2020
Direct Growth of Unidirectional Graphene Nanoribbons on Vicinal Ge(001) journal September 2019
Finding the hidden valence band of N  =  7 armchair graphene nanoribbons with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy journal April 2018
Chemical Approaches to Carbon‐Based Metal‐Free Catalysts journal January 2019
The GW Compendium: A Practical Guide to Theoretical Photoemission Spectroscopy journal July 2019
A transport isolation by orbital hybridization transformation toward graphene nanoribbon-based nanostructure integration journal September 2018
On-surface synthesis of poly(p-phenylene ethynylene) molecular wires via in situ formation of carbon-carbon triple bond journal June 2018
Modified Engineering of Graphene Nanoribbons Prepared via On‐Surface Synthesis journal December 2019
Effect of Edge Functionalization on the Bottom‐Up Synthesis of Nano‐Graphenes journal October 2019
Step edge-mediated assembly of periodic arrays of long graphene nanoribbons on Au(111) journal January 2019
Doublon Formation by Ions Impacting a Strongly Correlated Finite Lattice System journal December 2018
Short-channel field-effect transistors with 9-atom and 13-atom wide graphene nanoribbons text January 2017
Electronic characterization of silicon intercalated chevron graphene nanoribbons on Au(111) text January 2018
Optimized Substrates and Measurement Approaches for Raman Spectroscopy of Graphene Nanoribbons text January 2019
Production and processing of graphene and related materials text January 2020
Production and processing of graphene and related materials text January 2020
Doublon formation by ions impacting a strongly correlated finite lattice system text January 2018
Optimized substrates and measurement approaches for Raman spectroscopy of graphene nanoribbons text January 2019
Step edge-mediated assembly of periodic arrays of long graphene nanoribbons on Au(111) preprint January 2019
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One Precursor but Two Types of Graphene Nanoribbons: On-Surface Transformations of 10,10′-Dichloro-9,9′-bianthryl on Ag(111) journal March 2019
Lateral Fusion of Chemical Vapor Deposited N = 5 Armchair Graphene Nanoribbons journal July 2017
Unraveling the electronic structure of narrow atomically-precise chiral graphene nanoribbons text January 2017
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