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Nano Research 2022, 15(3): 1709-1714 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3819-8
Research Article | Issue | Published: 16 September 2021

Carbon nanotube-dependent synthesis of armchair graphene nanoribbons

Show Author's Information Yifan Zhang1,  Kecheng Cao2,3,  Takeshi Saito4,  Hiromichi Kataura4,  Hans Kuzmany5,  Thomas Pichler5,  Ute Kaiser2,  Guowei Yang1( ),  Lei Shi1( )
State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Nanotechnology Research Center, Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronic Materials and Wearable Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Central Facility for Electron Microscopy, Electron Microscopy Group of Materials Science, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
School of Physical Science and Technology, Shanghai Tech University, Shanghai 201210, China
Nanomaterials Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba 305-8565, Japan
Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna 1090-A, Austria
Keywords:
Raman spectroscopy, single-walled carbon nanotubes, armchair graphene nanoribbons, diameter dependence, metallicity dependence
Topics:
Graphene nanoribbon
Cite this article:
Zhang Y, Cao K, Saito T, et al. Carbon nanotube-dependent synthesis of armchair graphene nanoribbons. Nano Research, 2022, 15(3): 1709-1714. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3819-8
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Abstract Full text About this article

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.


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About this article

Carbon nanotube-dependent synthesis of armchair graphene nanoribbons

Show Author's information Yifan Zhang1, Kecheng Cao2,3, Takeshi Saito4, Hiromichi Kataura4, Hans Kuzmany5, Thomas Pichler5, Ute Kaiser2, Guowei Yang1( ), Lei Shi1( )
State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Nanotechnology Research Center, Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronic Materials and Wearable Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Central Facility for Electron Microscopy, Electron Microscopy Group of Materials Science, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
School of Physical Science and Technology, Shanghai Tech University, Shanghai 201210, China
Nanomaterials Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba 305-8565, Japan
Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna 1090-A, Austria

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Raman spectroscopy, single-walled carbon nanotubes, armchair graphene nanoribbons, diameter dependence, metallicity dependence

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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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