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Graphene nanomesh

Nature Nanotechnology volume 5, pages 190–194 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Graphene has significant potential for application in electronics1,2,3,4,5, but cannot be used for effective field-effect transistors operating at room temperature because it is a semimetal with a zero bandgap6,7. Processing graphene sheets into nanoribbons with widths of less than 10 nm can open up a bandgap that is large enough for room-temperature transistor operation8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19, but nanoribbon devices often have low driving currents or transconductances18,19. Moreover, practical devices and circuits will require the production of dense arrays of ordered nanoribbons, which remains a significant challenge20,21. Here, we report the production of a new graphene nanostructure—which we call a graphene nanomesh—that can open up a bandgap in a large sheet of graphene to create a semiconducting thin film. The nanomeshes are prepared using block copolymer lithography and can have variable periodicities and neck widths as low as 5 nm. Graphene nanomesh field-effect transistors can support currents nearly 100 times greater than individual graphene nanoribbon devices, and the on–off ratio, which is comparable with the values achieved in individual nanoribbon devices, can be tuned by varying the neck width. The block copolymer lithography approach used to make the nanomesh devices is intrinsically scalable and could allow for the rational design and fabrication of graphene-based devices and circuits with standard semiconductor processing.

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Figure 1: Schematic of fabrication of a graphene nanomesh.
Figure 2: Images illustrating the steps of the nanomesh fabrication process.
Figure 3: TEM studies of graphene and thin-layer graphite nanomesh.
Figure 4: Room-temperature electrical properties of a graphene nanomesh device.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge technical support regarding TEM from the Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines (EICN) at University of California, Los Angeles, and for device fabrication from the Nanoelectronics Research Facility at University of California, Los Angeles. We thank R. Kaner and D. Neuhauser for discussions, J. Chen and C. Liu for assistance in statistics analysis, and F.X. Xiu for assistance in block copolymer processing. Y.H. acknowledges support from the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and an Applied Science Fellowship. X.D. acknowledges partial support by the NIH Director's New Innovator Award Program, part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, through grant no. 1DP2OD004342-01.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Jingwei Bai & Yu Huang

  2. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Xing Zhong, Shan Jiang & Xiangfeng Duan

  3. California Nanosystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Yu Huang & Xiangfeng Duan

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  1. Jingwei Bai
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  2. Xing Zhong
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  3. Shan Jiang
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  4. Yu Huang
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  5. Xiangfeng Duan
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Contributions

X.D., Y.H. and J.B. conceived and designed the experiments. J.B., X.Z. and S.J. performed the experiments. J.B. collected and analysed the data. J.B., Y.H. and X.D. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yu Huang or Xiangfeng Duan.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bai, J., Zhong, X., Jiang, S. et al. Graphene nanomesh. Nature Nanotech 5, 190–194 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.8

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