Nanotubes Unzipped

Significance

Graphene refers to single-layered graphite. It exhibits high crystallinity along with interesting electronic properties. Graphene nano­ribbon refers to a long, thin strip of graphene with straight edges, and these nanoribbons can act as semiconductors or semimetals depending on their width. Graphene therefore has a profound potential for application in material science, including fabrication of nanoscale devices. The authors report a simple method of preparing graphene ­nanoribbons by ”unzipping" multiwalled carbon nanotubes. The reported method is very mild and gives the desired ribbon structures readily in essentially quantitative yields.