Rice University lab grows ‘bottom-up’ nanoribbons for the
first time
Concentric hexagons of graphene grown in a furnace at Rice
University represent the first time anyone has synthesized graphene nanoribbons
on metal from the bottom up — atom by atom.
As seen under a microscope, the layers brought onions to
mind, said Rice chemist James Tour, until a colleague suggested flat graphene
could never be like an onion.
“So I said, ‘OK, these are onion rings,’” Tour quipped.
The name stuck, and the remarkable rings that chemists
marveled were even possible are described in a new paper in the Journal of the
American Chemical Society.