Organic Chemistry of Graphene Framework

Abstract

Graphene, a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, has attracted much attention from chemists, physicists, and material scientists, because their peculiar electronic properties promise novel functions that radically change our lives in the coming years. Great contribution of physics has been disclosing electronic structures of graphene, whereas some of them can be understood by bottom-up approach, that is, by relating to chemistry of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This chapter mainly focuses on the origin of the magnetic properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in terms of aromatic sextet formation and spin localization, in relation to “edge state” of graphene and graphene nanoribbons.