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Graphene nanoribbons

Chemical stitching

Nature Nanotechnology volume 9, pages 875–876 (2014)Cite this article

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Junctions between graphene nanoribbons with different electronic properties can be created by using a bottom-up synthesis method.

The development of graphene-based electronics has been an important research goal ever since the material was isolated in 20041. For digital applications, the biggest hurdle for graphene is its lack of a bandgap. As a result, graphene field-effect transistors typically have large leakage current and cannot be completely switched off. Over the past decade, materials scientists have been trying different strategies to open a bandgap in graphene. So far, the most successful and technologically relevant approach is to slice graphene into one-dimensional ribbons that are only a few nanometres wide. A bandgap can open up in the electronic spectrum of these graphene nanoribbons as a result of the extreme spatial confinement, and transistors based on sub-5-nm graphene nanoribbons have been fabricated with an on/off ratio up to 106 (ref. 2), which is adequate for most logic applications. However, for many other applications such as diodes, bipolar junction transistors and photovoltaic devices, an added requirement is the fabrication of heterojunctions.

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Figure 1: Graphene nanoribbon heterostructures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xinran Wang is at the National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China,

    Xinran Wang

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  1. Xinran Wang
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Correspondence to Xinran Wang.

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Wang, X. Chemical stitching. Nature Nanotech 9, 875–876 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.257

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.257

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