On-Surface synthesis, transfer and device fabrication of novel carbon-based nanomaterials
The study of on-surface chemical reactions has attracted recently an enormous interest demonstrating to be a versatile tool for the fabrication of atomically precise covalently bonded carbon nanomaterials that cannot be synthesized in conventional solution-based chemistry. However, despite of the extraordinary advances realized in the field of on-surface synthesis in the last years, a gap between ideal nanomaterials and the accessible synthetic pathways to reach them still persists. Contemporarily to the recent progress achieved in on-surface synthesis, the fabrication of high-performance tunneling field-effect transistors (FETs) based on the bottom-up chemical synthesis of specific carbon-based nanomaterials, such as low-bandgap GNRs, has supposed an enormous progress for the fabrication of next-generation electronic devices, opening the field of flexible and low-consumption electronics. A general feature of the bottom-up assembly approaches realized so far is the need of a metallic substrate to trigger and promote the assembly of precursor monomers into the desired final nanomaterial. As a result, the final product is supported on metal substrates, which is not adequate for the device development. Therefore, efficient transfer procedures for bringing the targeted nanomaterial onto technologically relevant semiconducting or insulating substrates are necessary. In this context, the goal of the OssCaNa project presents two steps. First, it aims at the study of carbon-based nanomaterials combining a broad variety of surface science techniques such as low temperature scanning probe microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS), non-contact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Second, it focusses on the efficient transfer of the targeted nanomaterials fabricated and characterized on a metallic substrate in the previous step, to appropriate substrates for further electrical transport characterization and high-performance device fabrication.