Quantum interference engineering of nanoporous graphene for carbon nanocircuitry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a chemical design strategy to suppress electronic cross-talk in nanoporous graphene, enabling electrons to stay confined within individual nanoribbons for potential use in quantum carbon nanocircuits.

Contribution

It introduces a novel chemical approach to induce destructive quantum interference, electronically isolating GNR channels in nanoporous graphene for improved nanoelectronic applications.

Findings

Injected currents can be confined within a single GNR for up to 100 nm.

Chemical design induces destructive quantum interference to block cross-talk.

The approach enhances the potential for quantum design in carbon nanocircuitry.

Abstract

Bottom-up prepared carbon nanostructures appear as promising platforms for future carbon-based nanoelectronics, due to their atomically precise and versatile structure. An important breakthrough is the recent preparation of nanoporous graphene (NPG) as an ordered covalent array of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). Within NPG, the GNRs may be thought of as 1D electronic nanochannels through which electrons preferentially move, highlighting NPG's potential for carbon nanocircuitry. However, the {\pi}-conjugated bonds bridging the GNRs give rise to electronic cross-talk between the individual 1D channels, leading to spatially dispersing electronic currents. Here, we propose a chemical design of the bridges resulting in destructive quantum interference, which blocks the cross-talk between GNRs in NPG, electronically isolating them. Our multiscale calculations reveal that injected currents can remain confined within a single, 0.7 nm wide, GNR channel for distances as long as 100 nm. The concepts developed in this work thus provide an important ingredient for the quantum design of future carbon nanocircuitry.