Raman fingerprints of atomically precise graphene nanoribbons

TL;DR

This study combines Raman spectroscopy and simulations to analyze how atomic structure, edge shape, and functional groups influence the Raman spectra of graphene nanoribbons, enabling precise identification.

Contribution

It introduces a method to distinguish graphene nanoribbons from other carbon structures using Raman spectral features linked to atomic details.

Findings

Low-energy Raman region is sensitive to edge and functional groups.

D peak dispersion uniquely fingerprints GNRs.

Raman spectra reflect atomic structure variations.

Abstract

Bottom-up approaches allow the production of ultra-narrow and atomically precise graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), with electronic and optical properties controlled by the specific atomic structure. Combining Raman spectroscopy and ab-initio simulations, we show that GNR width, edge geometry and functional groups all influence their Raman spectra. The low-energy spectral region below 1000 cm-1 is particularly sensitive to edge morphology and functionalization, while the D peak dispersion can be used to uniquely fingerprint the presence of GNRs, and differentiates them from other sp2 carbon nanostructures.