Effect of Chemical Structure on Polymer-Templated Growth of Graphitic Nanoribbons

Graphene nanoribbon (GNR) is an important candidate for future nanoelectronics due to its high carrier mobility and dimension-controlled band gap. Polymer-templated growth is a promising method toward high quality and massive production of GNRs. However, the obtained GNRs so far are still quite defective. In order to rationally control the crystallinity of the synthesized GNRs, herein we systematically investigate the effect of polymer chemical structure on their templated growth of GNRs. We studied the morphology/dimensions, composition, graphitization degree, and electrical conductivity of GNRs derived from four different types of electrospun polymers. The four polymers polystyrene (PS), poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), polyvinylphenol (PVP), and Novolac (a phenolic resin) are chosen to investigate the effect of metal binding and the effect of aromatic moieties. We found that metal-binding functional groups are crucial for obtaining uniform and continuous GNRs. On the other hand, a polymer with aromatic moieties leads to a higher sp(2) percentage in the resulting GNRs, showing a higher graphitization degree and electrical conductivity.