High-performance electronic devices made entirely of carbon could be created using low-cost, conventional microfabrication approaches to pattern one-atom-thick layers of carbon called graphene.
Zhongfan Liu at Peking University in Beijing and his collaborators laid a titanium dioxide-based photomask — a small stencil — on a sheet of graphene. The photomask catalyses the formation of hydroxyl radicals when ultraviolet light is shone onto it. This highly reactive species oxidizes graphene only in the irradiated regions — essentially acting like scissors to break carbon bonds and produce patterns (pictured). Using this approach, the authors fabricated an all-carbon transistor that performed similarly to conventional ones. The method is solvent-free, so avoids possible contamination issues.
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Chemical scissors cut graphene. Nature 470, 308 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/470308c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/470308c