Structure, Stability, Edge States and Aromaticity of Graphene Ribbons

Abstract

We determine the stability, the geometry, the electronic and magnetic structure of hydrogen-terminated graphene-nanoribbons edges as a function of the hydrogen content of the environment by means of density functional theory. Antiferromagnetic zigzag ribbons are stable only at extremely-low ultra-vacuum pressures. Under more standard conditions, the most stable structures are the mono- and di-hydrogenated armchair edges and a zigzag edge reconstruction with one di- and two mono-hydrogenated sites. At high hydrogen-concentration ``bulk'' graphene is not stable and spontaneously breaks to form ribbons, in analogy to the spontaneous breaking of graphene into small-width nanoribbons observed experimentally in solution. The stability and the existence of exotic edge electronic-states and/or magnetism is rationalized in terms of simple concepts from organic chemistry (Clar's rule)

4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication by Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
• Magnetic Correlations at Graphene Edges
• Competition between spin and charge polarized states in nanographene ribbons with zigzag edges