Inducing metallicity in graphene nanoribbons via zero-mode superlattices

The design and fabrication of robust metallic states in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are challenging because lateral quantum confinement and many-electron interactions induce electronic band gaps when graphene is patterned at nanometer length scales. Recent developments in bottom-up synthesis have en...

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Veröffentlicht in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2020-09, Vol.369 (6511), p.1597-1603
Hauptverfasser: Rizzo, Daniel J, Veber, Gregory, Jiang, Jingwei, McCurdy, Ryan, Cao, Ting, Bronner, Christopher, Chen, Ting, Louie, Steven G, Fischer, Felix R, Crommie, Michael F
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:The design and fabrication of robust metallic states in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are challenging because lateral quantum confinement and many-electron interactions induce electronic band gaps when graphene is patterned at nanometer length scales. Recent developments in bottom-up synthesis have enabled the design and characterization of atomically precise GNRs, but strategies for realizing GNR metallicity have been elusive. Here we demonstrate a general technique for inducing metallicity in GNRs by inserting a symmetric superlattice of zero-energy modes into otherwise semiconducting GNRs. We verify the resulting metallicity using scanning tunneling spectroscopy as well as first-principles density-functional theory and tight-binding calculations. Our results reveal that the metallic bandwidth in GNRs can be tuned over a wide range by controlling the overlap of zero-mode wave functions through intentional sublattice symmetry breaking.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.aay3588