Bottom-up graphene nanoribbon(GNR) device based on van der Waals heterostructure

Driven by recent experimental breakthroughs via a bottom-up approach, a new exciting material candidate in the form of just few atoms wide graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are emerging as strong candidates for realizing molecular electronics. GNRs are predicted to exhibit a rich variety of electronic and magnetic behaviors.
Although substantial efforts have been devoted, the field of bottom-up GNR device exploration is still in its infancy such that the device taking advantages of GNR’s extraordinary properties hasn’t yet been successfully demonstrated. Thus, developing novel nanoscale architectures that make the most out of GNRs’ potential is essential and prerequisite for further investigation. Here, we show a new bottom-up GNR nanostructure-based platform via dry transfer method to harness exciting physical phenomena. Using our device concept, we integrate top-down and bottom-up techniques to demonstrate high quality GNR devices. Bottom-up GNRs are small enough to bring their quantum mechanical nature to GNR devices that could exhibit quantum effect, even at ambient temperature, which has been elusive in conventional electronics. Our work will be an important step towards opening the new possibility of realizing 1-nm scale electronics in the post-silicon era.