Chemical synthesis of graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

Graphene is a two-dimensional atom-thick sheet of graphite composed of an sp 2 -hybridized carbon atom network. Its isolation in 2004 and the extensive research that followed have led, amongst others, to graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), a graphene-based structure having nano-scale dimensions and semiconducting or metallic electronic properties that depend on its geometry and dimensions. These characteristics of GNRs are in stark contrast to those of graphene, which is a carbon sheet with semimetal, zero band gap characteristics. In the present article, we discuss the progress that has been reported towards producing GNRs with predefined dimensions, by using bottom-up chemical synthesis approaches.