Model of graphene structure by AlexanderAlUS.
The demand for smaller and smaller electronic devices has led to great strides towards the use of novel materials like graphene. One of the obstacles to the use of graphene is its lack of band gap, meaning it is difficult to use in digital electronics that need large current on/off ratios.
In their latest Topical Review in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, authors from Université Paris-Sud, Synchrotron SOLEIL, The Georgia Institute of Technology and Université Grenoble review comprehensively the large body of research into the electronic structure, fabrication methods and potential applications of graphene nanoribbons, summarising the key developments in the field towards opening a band gap without significantly affecting mobility.
You can also read about graphene nanoribbons in these latest articles from Journal of Physics D and Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter:
The thermal conductivity in hybridised graphene and boron nitride nanoribbons modulated with strain Xue-Kun Chen et al 2016 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 49 115301
Armchair-edged nanoribbon as a bottleneck to electronic total transmission through a topologically nontrivial graphene nanojunction Liwei Jiang et al 2016 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 28 085501
The thermal properties and thermoelectric performance of γ-graphyne nanoribbons Zhi Yang et al 2016 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 49 145102
Relaxation of electron–hole spins in strained graphene nanoribbons Sanjay Prabhakar and Roderick Melnik 2015 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 27 435801
Enhancement of thermoelectric efficiency by embedding hexagonal boron-nitride cells in zigzag graphene nanoribbons Sahar Izadi Vishkayi et al 2015 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 235304
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd. Image: , by . This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
Categories: Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
Image of the Week: Flexible, polarization-controllable diffusion metasurface with optical transparency 
Quantifying plasma chemistry products at atmospheric pressure 
Image of the Week: Direct writing using 3D printed, melt electrospun fibres 
Image of the week: Coalescence of Pickering emulsions. 
JPhys+ 