Molecular encapsulation from the liquid phase and graphene nanoribbon growth in carbon nanotubes

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel liquid-phase encapsulation method for growing uniform graphene nanoribbons inside carbon nanotubes, verified through advanced spectroscopic and microscopic techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a new encapsulation and annealing process for synthesizing graphene nanoribbons with controlled dimensions inside carbon nanotubes.

Findings

Nanoribbons are several tens of nanometers long.

Raman spectra confirm nanoribbon presence.

High-resolution imaging visualizes nanoribbons inside nanotubes.

Abstract

Growing graphene nanoribbons from small organic molecules encapsulated in carbon nanotubes can result in products with uniform width and chirality. We propose a method based on encapsulation of 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene from the liquid phase and subsequent annealing. This procedure results in graphene nanoribbons several tens of nanometers long. The presence of nanoribbons was proven by Raman spectra both on macroscopic samples and on the nanoscale by tip-enhanced Raman scattering and high-resolution transmission electron microscopic images.