Photoluminescent Semiconducting Graphene Nanoribbons via Longitudinally Unzipping Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

• The lack of a sizeable band gap has so far prevented graphene from building effective electronic and optoelectronic devices despite its numerous exceptional properties. Intensive theoretical research reveals that a band gap larger than 1 eV can only be achieved in sub-3 nm wide graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), but real fabrication of such ultranarrow GNRs still remains a critical challenge. Herein, we demonstrate an approach for the synthesis of ultranarrow and photoluminescent semiconducting GNRs by longitudinally unzipping single-walled carbon nanotubes. Atomic force microscopy reveals the unzipping process, and the resulting 2.2 nm wide GNRs are found to emit strong and sharp photoluminescence at similar to 685 nm, demonstrating a very desirable semiconducting nature. This band gap of 1.8 eV is further confirmed by follow-up photoconductivity measurements, where a considerable photocurrent is generated, as the excitation wavelength becomes shorter than 700 nm. More importantly, our fabricated GNR field-effect transistors (FETs), by employing the hexagonal boron nitride-encapsulated heterostructure to achieve edge-bonded contacts, demonstrate a high current on/off ratio beyond 105 and carrier mobility of 840 cm(2)/V s, approaching the theoretical scattering limit in semiconducting GNRs at room temperature. Especially, highly aligned GNR bundles with lengths up to a millimeter are also achieved by prepatterning a template, and the fabricated GNR bundle FETs show a high on/off ratio reaching 10(5), well-defined saturation currents, and strong light-emitting properties. Therefore, GNRs produced by this method open a door for promising applications in graphene-based electronics and optoelectronics.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Den kondenserade materiens fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Condensed Matter Physics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

semiconducting graphene nanoribbons

longitudinal unzipping

photoluminescence

high on-off ratio

high mobility

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