Graphene Nanoribbons tagged posts

Machines and electronic devices often generate waste heat that is difficult to utilize. If electricity could be generated from this waste heat, it would offer a means for a clean and sustainable power production: Such a technology would be ideally suited for low-power electronics applications such as wearables or low-cost Internet-of-Things devices. This includes, for example, wearable (medical) devices and sensors, with a wide range of applications in the healthcare and sports industry, in smart buildings and mobility applications.

Thermoelectric generators, machines that generate electricity by exploiting temperature di...

This is a white button mushroom equipped with 3D- printed graphene nanoribbons (black), which collect electricity generated by densely packed 3D-printed cyanobacteria (green).
Credit: Sudeep Joshi, Stevens Institute of Technology

In their latest feat of engineering, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have taken an ordinary white button mushroom from a grocery store and made it bionic, supercharging it with 3D-printed clusters of cyanobacteria that generate electricity and swirls of graphene nanoribbons that can collect the current.

The work, reported in the Nov...

Illustration of the molecular structure of the graphene nanoribbons prepared by UCLA chemistry professor Yves Rubin and colleagues. Credit: Courtesy of Yves Rubin

Tiny structures could be next-generation solution for smaller electronic devices. As electronic devices have become smaller and smaller, creating tiny silicon components that fit inside them has become more challenging and more expensive. Now, UCLA chemists have developed a new method to produce nanoribbons of graphene, next-generation structures that many scientists believe will one day power electronic devices.

The nanoribbons are extremely narrow strips of graphene, the width of just a few carbon atoms...

Illustration of a graphene nanoribbon with zigzag edges and the precursor molecules used in its manufacture. Electrons on the two zigzag edges display opposite directions of rotation (spin) — “spin-up” on the bottom edge (red) or “spin-down” on the top edge (blue). Credit: EMPA

Scientists have now managed to synthesise GNR with perfectly zigzagged edges using suitable carbon precursor molecules and a perfected manufacturing process. The zigzags followed a very specific geometry along the longitudinal axis of the ribbons. This is an important step, because researchers can thus give graphene ribbons different properties via the geometry of the ribbons and especially via the structure of their edges.

With molecules in a U-shape, which they allowed to grow together to form a snake-like shape, ...