Bottom up synthesis of multifunctional nanoporous graphene

TL;DR

This paper introduces a bottom-up synthesis method for creating nanoporous graphene with atomic precision, enabling tunable pore sizes and anisotropic electronic properties for advanced sensing and sieving applications.

Contribution

A novel bottom-up approach to synthesize nanoporous graphene with precisely controlled pore size, morphology, and chemical composition at the nanometer scale.

Findings

Pores can be tuned down to 1 nanometer.

Graphene exhibits highly anisotropic electronic structure.

Coexistence of semiconducting bands and confined pore states.

Abstract

Nanosize pores can turn semimetallic graphene into a semiconductor and from being impermeable into the most efficient molecular sieve membrane. However, scaling the pores down to the nanometer, while fulfilling the tight structural constraints imposed by applications, represents an enormous challenge for present top-down strategies. Here we report a bottom-up method to synthesize nanoporous graphene comprising an ordered array of pores separated by ribbons, which can be tuned down to the one nanometer range. The size, density, morphology and chemical composition of the pores are defined with atomic precision by the design of the molecular precursors. Our measurements further reveal a highly anisotropic electronic structure, where orthogonal one-dimensional electronic bands with an energy gap of ~1 eV coexist with confined pore states, making the nanoporous graphene a highly versatile semiconductor for simultaneous sieving and electrical sensing of molecular species.