Zhang, X.; Gärisch, F.; Chen, Z.; Hu, Y.; Wang, Z.; Wang, Y.; Xie, L.; Chen, J.; Li, J.; Barth, J.V.; Narita, A.; List-Kratochvil, E.J.W.; Müllen, K.; Palma, C.-A.: Self-assembly and photoinduced fabrication of conductive nanographene wires on boron nitride. Nature Communications 13 (2022), p. 332/1-8
10.1038/s41467-021-27600-1
Open Access Version
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 106 S m−1 and breakdown current densities of 1011 A 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.