Bottom-up fabrication of graphene nanostructures on Ru(1010)

Investigations on the bottom-up fabrication of graphene nanostructures with 10, 10'-dibromo-9, 9'-bianthryl (DBBA) as a precursor on Ru(1010) were carried out using scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Upon annealing the sample at submonolayer DBBA coverage, N = 7 graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) aligned along the [1210] direction form. Higher DBBA coverage and higher annealing temperature lead to the merging of GNRs into ribbon-like graphene nanoflakes with multiple orientations. These nanoflakes show different Moiré patterns, and their structures were determined by DFT simulations. The results showed that GNRs possess growth preference on the Ru(1010) substrate with a rectangular unit cell, and GNRs with armchair and zigzag boundaries are obtainable. Further DFT calculations suggest that the interaction between graphene and the substrate controls the orientations of the graphene overlayer and the growth of graphene on Ru(1010).