On-Surface Synthesis of Graphene Nanoribbons Catalyzed by Ni Atoms

Shuya Xing; Bing Liu; Wenquan Wang; Jiandong Guo; Weihua Wang

doi:10.1002/asia.201800610

On-Surface Synthesis of Graphene Nanoribbons Catalyzed by Ni Atoms

Chem Asian J. 2018 Jun 15. doi: 10.1002/asia.201800610. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Shuya Xing^{1

2}, Bing Liu^{1

3}, Wenquan Wang², Jiandong Guo^{1

3

4}, Weihua Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
² College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China.
³ School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
⁴ Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, 100871, China.

PMID: 29905404
DOI: 10.1002/asia.201800610

Abstract

Nanometer-wide graphene nanoribbons can be synthesized from halogen aromatics through multistep on-surface reactions, but the catalytic role of extrinsic transition-metal atoms in these reactions are still to be explored. Here by low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy, we investigated the on-surface synthesis of graphene nanoribbons from 10,10'-dibromo-9,9'-bianthryl precursors in the presence of Ni atoms. Ni atoms not only act as catalysts in debromination and lead to the formation of an organometallic intermediate at 300 K, but also prompt the fusion reaction between graphene nanoribbons at 673 K. Our work demonstrates a more efficient way to fabricate fused graphene nanoribbons.

Keywords: C−C coupling; catalysis; nickel; scanning tunneling microscopy; surface chemistry.