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Sub-nanometer armchair graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with moderate band gap have great potential towards novel nanodevices. GNRs can be synthesized in the confined tubular space of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), in which precursor molecules have been specifically designed to form the GNRs with certain width and edge. However, it is still unexplored how the diameter and metallicity of SWCNTs influence the synthesis of the GNRs. Herein, we applied a series of SWCNTs with different average diameters to study the diameter-dependent synthesis of GNRs. By using Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy, we found that the width of the GNRs can be tailored by the diameter of the SWCNTs. Especially, the SWCNTs with average diameter of 1.3 nm produced 6 and 7 armchair GNRs with the highest yield, which can be well explained by considering the width of the GNRs and van der Waals radius of hydrogen and carbon atoms. In addition, semiconducting and metallic SWCNTs produced GNRs with different yields, which could attribute to different diameter distributions and density of defects. These results enable the possibility of a high-yield production of certain armchair graphene nanoribbons in large scale, which would benefit future applications as semiconductor with sub-nanometer in width.

Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 12 July 2021
Revised: 04 August 2021
Accepted: 12 August 2021
Published: 16 September 2021
Issue date: March 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51902353), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (No. 2019A1515011227), and Science and Technology Innovation Strategy Special Fund of Guangdong Province (No. pdjh2020(b)0018) and State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies (No. OEMT-2021-PZ-02). U. K. acknowledges the support of the Graphene Flagship and DFG SPP Graphene as well as the DFG and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK) of Baden-Wuerttemberg within the frame of the SALVE project.

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