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Tuning the morphology of chevron-type graphene nanoribbons by choice of annealing temperature

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Abstract

Bottom-up synthesis of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) by surface-assisted polymerization and cyclodehydrogenation of specifically designed precursor monomers has been shown to yield precise edges and doping. Here we use a precursor monomer containing sulfur atoms to fabricate nanostructures on a Au(111) surface at different annealing temperatures. The nanostructures have distinct configurations, varying from sulfur-doped polymers to sulfur-doped chevron-type GNRs (CGNRs) and, finally, pristine graphene nanoribbons with specific edges of periodic five-member carbon rings. Non-contact atomic force microscopy provides clear evidence for the cleavage of C–S bonds and formation of pristine CGNRs at elevated annealing temperatures. First-principles calculations show that the CGNRs exhibit negative differential resistance.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support from National Key Research and Development Projects of China (No. 2016YFA0202300), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CBA01600), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61390501,51572290, 61306015, 61471337, 51325204, and 11604373), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Nos. 1731300500015 and XDB07030100), and the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program. A portion of the research was performed in CAS Key Laboratory of Vacuum Physics. Work at Vanderbilt (S. T. P. and Y. Y. Z.) was supported by the US Department of Energy under grant DEFG02-09ER46554 and by the McMinn Endowment.

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Author notes

  1. Yun Cao, Jing Qi, and Yan-Fang Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics & University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Yun Cao, Jing Qi, Yan-Fang Zhang, Li Huang, Qi Zheng, Xiao Lin, Yu-Yang Zhang, Shixuan Du, Sokrates T. Pantelides & Hong-Jun Gao

  2. Department of Physics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Zhihai Cheng

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, 37235, USA

    Yu-Yang Zhang & Sokrates T. Pantelides

  4. Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) & Department of Chemistry and Food Chemistry, Technische Universität Dresden, D-01069, Dresden, Germany

    Xinliang Feng

  5. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Xinliang Feng

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  1. Yun Cao
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  2. Jing Qi
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  3. Yan-Fang Zhang
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  4. Li Huang
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  9. Xinliang Feng
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  10. Shixuan Du
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  11. Sokrates T. Pantelides
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xinliang Feng or Shixuan Du.

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Cao, Y., Qi, J., Zhang, YF. et al. Tuning the morphology of chevron-type graphene nanoribbons by choice of annealing temperature. Nano Res. 11, 6190–6196 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2136-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2136-3

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