Highly stretchable graphene nanoribbon springs by programmable nanowire lithography

Abstract

Graphene nanoribbons are ideal candidates to serve as highly conductive, flexible, and transparent interconnections, or the active channels for nanoelectronics. However, patterning narrow graphene nanoribbons to <100 nm wide usually requires inefficient micro/nano fabrication processes, which are hard to implement for large area or flexible electronic and sensory applications. Here, we develop a precise and scalable nanowire lithography technology that enables reliable batch manufacturing of ultra-long graphene nanoribbon arrays with programmable geometry and narrow width down to~50 nm. The orderly graphene nanoribbons are patterned out of few-layer graphene sheets by using ultra-long silicon nanowires as masks, which are produced via in-plane solid-liquid-solid guided growth and then transferred reliably onto various stiff or flexible substrates. More importantly, the geometry of the graphene nanoribbons can be predesigned and engineered into elastic two-dimensional springs to achieve outstanding stretchability of >30%, while carrying stable and repeatable electronic transport. We suggest that this convenient scalable nanowire lithography technology has great potential to establish a general and efficient strategy to batch-pattern or integrate various two-dimensional materials as active channels and interconnections for emerging flexible electronic applications.

Designing a mechanically driven spin-crossover molecular switch via organic embedding

“…The uniaxial strain applied to the device is quantified by the relative change in the unit-cell size along the x -direction. The covalent nature of the molecule-zGNR bonds and the high stretchability of zGNRs 37 allow a sizeable expansion of the device. A 1% strain is sufficient to release the internal stress caused by the bonding between FeP and the zGNR electrodes and restore planarity, which is retained for higher strains.…”

Novel electrical properties and applications in kaleidoscopic graphene nanoribbons

“…For example, a-GNRs with a small length has a larger band gap, when both the length and width are small, the band gap of z-GNRs is larger, the doublelayer structure has a different band gap than the single-layer structure; doping and adsorption can also control the material structure, etc. [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] From previous studies, we know that a-GNRs with uniform jagged edges have an energy gap, and the energy gap decreases as the width of the nanoribbon increases. The edge effect is crucial for determining the value of the band gap and the rule of proportionality.…”

Graphene/Silver Nanowires/Graphene Sandwich Composite for Stretchable Transparent Electrodes and Its Fracture Mechanism

“…Although various transparent graphene-based electrodes have been explored [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ], the simultaneous achievement of high transparency, conductivity, and stretchability in the electrode remain challenging. The greatest challenge is the retention of electrical conductivity upon stretching [ 28 , 29 ]. Moreover, the CVD-synthesized graphene has a polycrystalline nature [ 30 , 31 ], and the presence of grain boundaries results in a significantly higher resistance in the graphene film than in the ITO film.…”