Low resistivity of graphene nanoribbons with zigzag-dominated edge fabricated by hydrogen plasma etching combined with Zn/HCl pretreatment

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) have attracted intensive research interest owing to their potential applications in high performance graphene-based electronics. However, the deterioration of electrical performance caused by edge disorder is still an important obstacle to the applications. Here, we report the fabrication of low resistivity GNRs with a zigzag-dominated edge through hydrogen plasma etching combined with the Zn/HCl pretreatment method. This method is based on the anisotropic etching properties of hydrogen plasma in the vicinity of defects created by sputtering zinc (Zn) onto planar graphene. The polarized Raman spectra measurement of GNRs exhibits highly polarization dependence, which reveals the appearance of the zigzag-dominated edge. The as-prepared GNRs exhibit high carrier mobility (∼1332.4 cm2 v−1 s−1) and low resistivity (∼0.7 kΩ) at room temperature. Particularly, the GNRs can carry large current density (5.02 × 108 A cm−2) at high voltage (20.0 V) in the air atmosphere. Our study develop...