Several researchers have tried to add nanoribbons' unique magnetic characteristics to carbon-based spintronics devices. They offer low-power, high-speed data storage and processing technologies through encoding the data via electron spin rather than charge. Researchers have struggled to channel the unique features of zigzag nanoribbons practically into a gadget for a long time because of their reactive state.
A research group recently found a method for stabilizing the edges of graphene nanoribbons and measuring their unique magnetic characteristics. The findings could significantly impact the Spintronic Logic Devices Market because they allow researchers to experiment with unconventional magnetic edges, leading to carbon-based spintronics.
They could tune the local electrical structure discretely without affecting the magnetic characteristics. This little structural change also contributed to the emergence of a scanning probe microscopy technique for measuring the material's local magnetism at the atomic scale.
Attempts to stabilize the zigzag edge changed the edge's electrical structure in the past. This puzzle has doomed attempts to reach their magnetic structure via experimental approaches, relegating their investigation to computational models until now.
The team created a custom-made molecular building block with an arrangement of nitrogen and carbon atoms. They can be projected onto the precise shape of the required zigzag graphene nanoribbons using theoretical models.
The microscopic molecular building blocks are first deposited onto a flat metal surface or substrate to create the nanoribbons. The surface is then slightly heated, allowing two chemical handles on the opposite end of each molecule to be activated. This activation phase breaks a chemical connection, leaving a highly reactive "sticky end" behind.
When two "sticky ends" contact while the activated molecules are spread over the surface, new carbon-carbon bonds are formed. The technique eventually produces 1D daisy chains of molecular building pieces. At last, a second heating process rearranges the internal bonds of the chain. This results in a graphene nanoribbon with two parallel zigzag edges.
The molecular building block may record any structural characteristic relevant to the graphene ribbon. This is a unique advantage of this bottom-up molecular technology.
Exploring and, eventually, creating experimental techniques that allow the rational creation of these unusual magnetic edges opens the door to unparalleled carbon-based spintronics prospects. Researchers added that they are likely to investigate phenomena related to these qualities in custom-designed zigzag graphene architectures in the future.