New Method for Producing High-quality Graphene Nanoribbons Using the New Method of France, Germany and the United States

An international research team consisting of French, U.S., and German research institutes and universities has recently synthesized high-quality graphene nanoribbons using new methods and successfully demonstrated its extraordinary electrical conductivity at room temperature. This type of nanoribbon opens up new space for the development of new electronic devices. Related research was published on the website of Nature magazine.

Graphene is a material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms and possesses a number of extremely specific physical properties. At room temperature, electrons travel 200 times faster in graphene than in silicon. Previous studies have confirmed that carbon nanotubes (a cylindrical structure formed by graphene curling) have excellent electrical conductivity, whereas carbon nanotubes with a more complex structure cannot be mounted inside an electronic chip. Therefore, researchers turned their research to another form of graphene - flat graphene nanoribbons.

The research team designed a clever way to successfully produce high-quality graphene nanoribbons with a width of only 40 nanometers. The previous graphene nanoribbons have relatively rough edges, which seriously affect the conductivity of the graphene nanoribbons and are a major obstacle to the electron transport of the graphene nanoribbons. In order to solve this problem, the researchers cut out the edges of the silicon carbide crystals with a strip of grooves, and directly in these grooves prepared graphene nanoribbons. In experiments to test the conductivity of newly prepared nanoribbons, the electron mobility at room temperature exceeds 1 million cm2/Vs (the rate of electron migration per unit electric field), which is 1000 times higher than that of silicon semiconductors used in computer memory (usually low At 1700cm2/Vs).

In addition, the new preparation method is suitable for large-scale production, and can guarantee the structure quality of the graphene nanoribbons, which makes it possible to widely use graphene in the electronic field. (Reporter Li Hongce Liu Xia)