Unleashing the Graphene Nanoribbon that could lead to high-speed, low-power Nanoscale Data Storage
Graphene – a thin carbon sheet just one atom thick – was discovered more than 15 years ago, the wonder material became a workhorse in materials science research. From this body of work, other researchers learned that slicing graphene along the edge of its honeycomb lattice creates one-dimensional zigzag graphene strips or nanoribbons with exotic magnetic properties. Many researchers have sought to harness nanoribbon’s unusual magnetic behavior into carbon-based, spintronic devices that enable high-speed, low-power data storage and information processing technologies by encoding data through electron spin instead of charge. But because zigzag nanoribbons are highly reactive, researchers have grappled with…