Graphitic naowiggles
2 Feb 2012 by Evoluted New Media
Caterpillar-like graphitic nanowiggles have exceptional conductivity and magnetic properties which can be tuned for purpose say American researchers.
A team from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute used the one of the world’s most powerful university-based supercomputers to uncover the properties of this promising form of graphene.
“Graphene nanomaterials have plenty of nice properties, but to date it has been very difficult to build defect-free graphene nanostructures. So these hard-to-reproduce nanostructures create a near insurmountable barrier between innovation and the market,” said Vincent Meunier. “The advantage of graphene nanowiggles is that they can easily and quickly be produced very long and clean.”
The graphitic nanowiggles – first fabricated by an EMPA-led team in 2010 – are periodic repetitions of nonaligned finite sized graphitic nanoribbon domains, which are seamlessly stitched together without structural defects. These ribbons are built using a bottom-up approach and chemically assembled atom by atom. They can be easily manufactured and modified to display exceptional electrical conductive properties.
The team used computational analysis to identify four different nanowiggle structures, which they have named based on shape: armchair; armchair/zigzag; zigzag; and zigzag/armchair. Each different nanowiggle produces highly varied band gaps – which determines the level of electrical conductivity – and exhibits up to five highly varied magnetic properties.
With this knowledge, the team will be able to tune band gap and magnetic properties of a nanostructure based on their application, said Meunier. The findings provide a blueprint that scientists can use to pick and choose a graphene nanostructure tuned and customised for a different task or device.
“We have created a roadmap that can allow for nanomaterials to be easily built and customised for applications from photovoltaics to semiconductors, and importantly spintronics,” he said.
