Quantum electronics: ‘Bite’ defects in bottom-up graphene nanoribbons

Science Daily  May 25, 2021 Researchers in Switzerland have shown the nature of the structural disorder in bottom-up zigzag graphene nanoribbons along with its effect on the magnetism and electronic transport based on scanning probe microscopies and first-principles calculations. They found that edge-missing m-xylene units emerging during the cyclodehydrogenation step of the on-surface synthesis are the most common point defects. These “bite” defects act as spin-1 paramagnetic centers, severely disrupting the conductance spectrum around the band extrema, and give rise to spin-polarized charge transport. They also showed that the electronic conductance across graphene nanoribbons is more sensitive to “bite” defects […]