Self-assembly and photoinduced fabrication of conductive nanographene wires on boron nitride.

ABSTRACT: Manufacturing molecule-based functional elements directly at device interfaces is a frontier in bottom-up materials engineering. A longstanding challenge in the field is the covalent stabilization of pre-assembled molecular architectures to afford nanodevice components. Here, we employ the controlled supramolecular self-assembly of anthracene derivatives on a hexagonal boron nitride sheet, to generate nanographene wires through photo-crosslinking and thermal annealing. Specifically, we demonstrate µm-long nanowires with an average width of 200 nm, electrical conductivities of 10⁶S m^-1 and breakdown current densities of 10¹¹A m^-2. Joint experiments and simulations reveal that hierarchical self-assembly promotes their formation and functional properties. Our approach demonstrates the feasibility of combined bottom-up supramolecular templating and top-down manufacturing protocols for graphene nanomaterials and interconnects, towards integrated carbon nanodevices.

SUBMITTER: Zhang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8782843 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature