Abstract
Scanning tunneling microscopy is a very suitable instrument for the local probing and spectroscopic characterization of individual molecules, in our case narrow graphene nanoribbons. The electronic properties of a graphene nanoribbon can be controlled by its edge structure and width. Bottom-up approaches like on-surface synthesis allow the formation of extended conjugated electronic systems. Moreover, they lead to atomically defined edges which are important as structural defects have been predicted to modify the electronic structure. We have used low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy to investigate the formation, adsorption properties, and electronic structure of single graphene nanoribbons. 10,10′-Dibromo-9,9′-bianthryl molecules were used as molecular building blocks to form graphene nanoribbons after linking of the monomers and subsequent cyclodehydrogenation. In addition to intact ribbons, the influence of various defects on the electronic states is also investigated.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge financial support from European Projects ARTIST and AtMol and the German Science Foundation DFG (through SFB 658). We also acknowledge the A*STAR Computational Resource Centre (A*CRC) for the computational resources and support.
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Koch, M., Ample, F., Joachim, C., Grill, L. (2013). Electronic Structure and Properties of Graphen Nanoribbons: Zigzag and Armchair Edges. In: Grill, L., Joachim, C. (eds) Imaging and Manipulating Molecular Orbitals. Advances in Atom and Single Molecule Machines. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38809-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38809-5_7
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