Multifunctional nanoporous graphene

Nanoporous graphene shows a great potential as an active component of field effect transistors and as an atom-thick selective molecular nanosieve. Recently, we have reported the bottom-up formation and electronic characterization of atomically precise nanoporous graphene comprising an ordered array of pores separated by ribbons, which can be tuned down to the one nanometer range [1]. Our combined Density Functional Theory (DFT) and Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy (STS) study reveals a highly anisotropic electronic structure, where orthogonal one-dimensional electronic bands with an energy gap of ~1 eV coexist with a novel family of confined pore states. These properties can be tuned by changing, e.g. the size and morphology of the pore, making this 2D mesh a highly versatile semiconductor for simultaneous sieving and electrical sensing of molecular species. [1] C. Moreno et al., Science 360, 199 (2018)