Issue 17, 2023

Electrochemical regulation of the band gap of single layer graphene: from semimetal to semiconductor

Abstract

As a semimetal with a zero band gap and single-atom-scale thickness, single layer graphene (SLG) has excellent electron conductivity on its basal plane. If the band gap could be opened and regulated controllably, SLG would behave as a semiconductor. That means electronic elements or even electronic circuits with single-atom thickness could be expected to be printed on a wafer-scale SLG substrate, which would bring about a revolution in Moore's law of integrated circuits, not by decreasing the feature size of line width, but by piling up the atomic-scale-thickness of an SLG circuit board layer by layer. Employing scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), we have demonstrated that the electrochemically induced brominating addition reaction can open and regulate the band gap of SLG by forming SLG bromide (SLGBr). The SLG/SLGBr/SLG Schottky junction shows excellent performance in current rectification, and the rectification potential region can be regulated by tuning the degree of bromination of SLG. This work provides a feasible and effective way to regulate the band gap of SLG, which would open new applications for SLG in micro–nano electronics and ultra-large-scale integrated circuits (ULSI).

Graphical abstract: Electrochemical regulation of the band gap of single layer graphene: from semimetal to semiconductor

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
09 Dec 2022
Accepted
16 Mar 2023
First published
17 Mar 2023
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 4500-4505

Electrochemical regulation of the band gap of single layer graphene: from semimetal to semiconductor

L. Zeng, W. Song, X. Jin, Q. He, L. Han, Y. Wu, C. Lagrost, Y. Leroux, P. Hapiot, Y. Cao, J. Cheng and D. Zhan, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 4500 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC06800A

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