Structural, Electronic, and Optical properties of Graphene Nanoribbons

Andrea FERRETTI, CNR NANO Modena

Narrow graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) exhibit substantial electronic band gaps, and optical properties expected to be fundamentally different from the ones of their parent material graphene. Unlike graphene the optical response of GNRs may be tuned by the ribbon width and the directly related electronic band gap.

We have studied the bottom-up formation of graphene nanoribbons, starting from molecular precursors, on different gold substrates. The comparison of the different surfaces unveils the delicate interplay between surface atomic corrugation, molecular mobility, and adsorption energies, that drive the GNR growth.

We have also addressed the optical properties of nanoribbons by computing the fundamental and optical gap from ab initio methods. Our results are in very good agreement with the experimental values obtained by STS, ARPES, and differential reflectance spectroscopy, indicating that this computational scheme can be quantitatively predictive for electronic and optical spectroscopies of nanostructures.

These studyes have been partly supported by the EU Centre of Excellence "MaX - MAterials design at the eXascale".

 
Back to TS.V.D