Project Grant 2203660

This three-year, $300,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemistry, under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), will support collaborative research between Professor Michael F. Crommie of the University of California, Berkeley and Professor Colin Nuckolls of Columbia University. The researchers will develop new synthetic methods to fabricate graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with precisely engineered ring structures, allowing for tunable electronic and magnetic properties. They will synthesize novel molecular precursors and polymers to grow GNRs containing non-hexagonal carbon rings on metal substrates. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, the team will characterize GNRs' local electronic structures and magnetic ordering at the atomic scale. They aim to control GNR radical states and magnetic order by inserting simple non-hexagonal ring structures. If successful, this work could help establish bottom-up fabricated GNRs as a new nanoelectronics platform with potential for high-density quantum devices at low cost.