Graphene: a promising material

Graphene is a promising material for tomorrow's nanoelectronics devices, as reported myScience.ch earlier . Precise and upscaleable methods to fabricate graphene and derived materials with desired electronic properties are however still searched after. To overcome the current limitations, researchers have fabricated graphene-like materials using a surface chemical route and clarified in detail the corresponding reaction pathway. The scientists combined empirical observations using scanning tunnelling microscopy with computer simulations. Electronic components are getting smaller and smaller, with microelectronic components gradually being replaced by nanoelectronic ones. On nanoscale dimensions, silicon, which is at the present stage the most commonly used material in semiconductor technology, reaches however a limit, preventing further miniaturization and technological progress. New electronic materials are therefore in great demand. Due to its outstanding electronic properties, graphene, a two-dimensional carbon network, is considered as a possible replacement. However, several obstacles must be overcome before graphene can be used in semiconductor technology. For instance, currently there is no easily applicable method for large-scale processing of graphene-like materials. Empa researchers reported on a surface chemical route to fabricate small fragments of graphene, so-called nanographenes. Using a prototypical polyphenylene precursor, the researchers clarified, how the reaction pathway runs in detail on a copper surface und how the building blocks can be transformed into planar nanographenes directly on the surface. Successful partners: experiment and simulation