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Published online: 2 June 2010 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2010.67

Materials chemistry: Expanding the carbon family

Anne Pichon

Introduction

© (2010) RSC

Carbon can exist in a variety of crystalline forms (allotropes), ranging from 'naturally occurring' diamond, graphite and amorphous carbon, to 'synthetic' fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene. Yuliang Li, Huibiao Liu and co-workers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing¹ have now synthesized graphdiyne (see image), a two-dimensional carbon network with structure and properties that are unlike any of the allotropes known before.

The researchers grew the graphdiyne on a piece of copper foil through a cross-coupling reaction that uses hexaethynylbenzene. The copper foil functions as a catalyst for the cross-coupling reaction and as a substrate for growing graphdiyne.

Using this approach, the researchers produced graphdiyne films of up to 3.61 cm² in area. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the films were continuous, uniform and flexible; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed that the films were pure carbon; Raman spectroscopy revealed that the films were multilayered; and by atomic force microscopy it was found that the films exhibited excellent semiconducting properties similar to silicon.

The researchers are optimistic that graphdiyne will become an important material in the field of electronics.

The authors of this work are from:
CAS Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Graduate Univeristy of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Reference

1. Li, G. et al. Architecture of graphdiyne nanoscale films. Chem. Commun. 46, 3256–3258 (2010). | Article | OpenURL | | ChemPort |