Transition-Metal-Catalyzed Unzipping of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes into Narrow Graphene Nanoribbons at Low Temperature

✍ Scribed by Prof. Jinlan Wang; Liang Ma; Dr. Qinghong Yuan; Liyan Zhu; Dr. Feng Ding

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 943 KB
• Volume: 50
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0044-8249
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.201101022

✦ Synopsis

Open, sesame! Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with smooth edges and controllable widths are crucial for graphene electronic and spintronic applications. High-quality narrow GNRs can be synthesized from single-walled carbon nanotubes at 200-300 °C using a Cu-atom catalyst, which dramatically reduces the energy barrier of unzipping from 3.11 to 1.16 eV.