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 12 2022
Accepted
16 3 2023
First published
17 3 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

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements