Search

For practical electronic device applications of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), it is essential to have abrupt and well-defined contacts between the ribbon and the adjacent metal lead. By analogy with graphene, these contacts can induce electron or hole doping, which may significantly affect the I/V characteristics of the device. Cu is among the most popular metals of choice for contact materials. In this study, we investigate the effect of in situ intercalation of Cu on the electronic structure of atomically precise, spatially aligned armchair GNRs of width N = 7 (7-AGNRs) fabricated via a bottom-up method on the Au(788) surface. Scanning tunneling microscopy data reveal that the complete intercalation of about one monolayer of Cu under 7-AGNRs can be facilitated by gentle annealing of the sample at 80 A degrees C. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) data clearly reflect the one-dimensional character of the 7-AGNR band dispersion before and after intercalation. Moreover, ARPES and core-level photoemission results show that intercalation of Cu leads to significant electron injection into the nanoribbons, which causes a pronounced downshift of the valence and conduction bands of the GNR with respect to the Fermi energy (Delta E similar to 0.5 eV). As demonstrated by ARPES and X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements, the effect of Cu intercalation is restricted to n-doping only, without considerable modification of the band structure of the GNRs. Post-annealing of the 7-AGNRs/Cu/Au(788) system at 200 A degrees C activates the diffusion of Cu into Au and the formation of a Cu-rich surface Au layer. Alloying of intercalated Cu leads to the recovery of the initial position of GNR-related bands with respect to the Fermi energy (E (F)), thus, proving the tunability of the induced n-doping.

Bottom-up strategies can be effectively implemented for the fabrication of atomically precise graphene nanoribbons. Recently, using 10,10'-dibromo-9,9'-bianthracene (DBBA) as a molecular precursor to grow armchair nanoribbons on Au(111) and Cu(111), we have shown that substrate activity considerably affects the dynamics of ribbon formation, nonetheless without significant modifications in the growth mechanism. In this paper we compare the on-surface reaction pathways for DBBA molecules on Cu(111) and Cu(110). Evolution of both systems has been studied via a combination of core-level X-ray spectroscopies, scanning tunneling microscopy, and theoretical calculations. Experimental and theoretical results reveal a significant increase in reactivity for the open and anisotropic Cu(110) surface in comparison with the close-packed Cu(111). This increased reactivity results in a predominance of the molecular substrate interaction over the intermolecular one, which has a critical impact on the transformations of DBBA on Cu(110). Unlike DBBA on Cu(111), the Ullmann coupling cannot be realized for DBBA/Cu(110) and the growth of nanoribbons via this mechanism is blocked. Instead, annealing of DBBA on Cu(110) at 250 degrees C results in the formation of a new structure: quasi-zero-dimensional flat nanographenes. Each nanographene unit has dehydrogenated zigzag edges bonded to the underlying Cu rows and oriented with the hydrogen-terminated armchair edge parallel to the [1-10] direction. Strong bonding of nanographene to the substrate manifests itself in a high adsorption energy of -12.7 eV and significant charge transfer of 3.46e from the copper surface. Nanographene units coordinated with bromine adatoms are able to arrange in highly regular arrays potentially suitable for nanotemplating.

Atomically precise graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) can be fabricated via thermally induced polymerization of halogen containing molecular precursors on metal surfaces. In this paper the effect of substrate reactivity on the growth and structure of armchair GNRs (AGNRs) grown on inert Au(111) and active Cu(111) surfaces has been systematically studied by a combination of core-level X-ray spectroscopies and scanning tunneling microscopy. It is demonstrated that the activation threshold for the dehalogenation process decreases with increasing catalytic activity of the substrate. At room temperature the 10,10'-dibromo-9,9'-bianthracene (DBBA) precursor molecules on Au(111) remain intact, while on Cu(111) a complete surface-assisted dehalogenation takes place. Dehalogenation of precursor molecules on Au(111) only starts at around 80 degrees C and completes at 200 degrees C, leading to the formation of linear polymer chains. On Cu(111) tilted polymer chains appear readily at room temperature or slightly elevated temperatures. Annealing of the DBBA/Cu(111) above 100 degrees C leads to intramolecular cyclodehydrogenation and formation of flat AGNRs at 200 degrees C, while on the Au(111) surface the formation of GNRs takes place only at around 400 degrees C. In STM, nanoribbons have significantly reduced apparent height on Cu(111) as compared to Au(111), 70 +/- 11 pm versus 172 +/- 14 pm, independently of the bias voltage. Moreover, an alignment of GNRs along low-index crystallographic directions of the substrate is evident for Cu(111), while on Au(111) it is more random. Elevating the Cu(111) substrate temperature above 400 degrees C results in a dehydrogenation and subsequent decomposition of GNRs; at 750 degrees C the dehydrogenated carbon species self-organize in graphene islands. In general, our data provide evidence for a significant influence of substrate reactivity on the growth dynamics of GNRs., Correction to “Effect of Substrate Chemistry on the Bottom-Up Fabrication of Graphene Nanoribbons: Combined Core-Level Spectroscopy and STM Study”. J. Phys. Chem. C 2015, 119, 1, 880–881Publication Date: December 19, 2014 https://doi.org/10.1021/jp512253y