Conversion of self-assembled monolayers into nanocrystalline graphene: Structure and electric transport

Abstract

Graphene-based materials have been suggested for applications ranging from nanoelectronics to nanobiotechnology. However, the realization of graphene-based technologies will require large quantities of free-standing two-dimensional (2D) carbon materials with tuneable physical and chemical properties. Bottom-up approaches via molecular self-assembly have great potential to fulfil this demand. Here, we report on the fabrication and characterization of graphene made by electron-radiation induced cross-linking of aromatic self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and their subsequent annealing. In this process, the SAM is converted into a nanocrystalline graphene sheet with well defined thickness and arbitrary dimensions. Electric transport data demonstrate that this transformation is accompanied by an insulator to metal transition that can be utilized to control electrical properties such as conductivity, electron mobility and ambipolar electric field effect of the fabricated graphene sheets. The suggested route opens broad prospects towards the engineering of free-standing 2D carbon materials with tuneable properties on various solid substrates and on holey substrates as suspended membranes.

30 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Synthesis and properties of free-standing monolayer amorphous carbon
• The Statistical Mechanics of Dynamic Pathways to Self-assembly
• On the mechanisms of precipitation of graphene on nickel thin films
• Multiscale charge transport in van der Waals thin films: reduced graphene oxide as case study
• Vibrational modes of ultrathin carbon nanomembrane mechanical resonators
• Light emission, light detection and strain sensing with nanocrystalline graphene
• Single-walled carbon nanotubes and nanocrystalline graphene reduce beam-induced movements in high-resolution electron cryo-microscopy of ice-embedded biological samples
• Low-temperature thermal conductivity in polycrystalline graphene
• Revealing the innate sub-nanometer porous structure of carbon nanomembranes with molecular dynamics simulations and highly charged ion spectroscopy