Substrate Engineering-Tailored Fabrication of Aligned Graphene Nanoribbon Arrays: Implications for Graphene Electronic Devices

Along with carbon nanotubes and other low-dimensional materials, graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are an active area of research and are candidates for the next generation of semiconductors with unparalleled electrical performance. An effective method was demonstrated to fabricate aligned GNR arrays of various lengths and densities by etching the wrinkle arrays that we created by substrate engineering. The width of the GNR could be 10 nm, and density of the GNR array was highly tailorable with a maximum average of 2.5 ribbons/μm, which could form in any position on the substrate. We tailored the length of the array to be within the 200–800 nm range by adjusting the parameters of the substrate structure. The as-prepared GNRs could be organized in both single and array manners, which shows an on/off ratio of >10 indicated by an open band gap of graphene. This result provides a route to fabricate aligned GNR arrays conveniently, efficiently, and with high controllability and allows for large-scale integration of GNRs into nanoelectronics or optoelectronics.