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Nanoribbons.A new toolbox for atomic-scale design<\/p>\nAn international research team has developed a method for building electronic components from chains of individual molecules, opening the door to a new class of materials that could underpin future technologies ranging from flexible electronics to quantum computing.<\/p>\n
The team, led by researchers at the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick, created ultra-thin \u201cnanoribbons\u201d \u2013 just a few atoms wide \u2013 with tailored electronic properties. Their findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications.<\/p>\n
The work centres on donor-acceptor chemistry, a technique already used in high-performance plastics for electronics. It involves creating molecules that either give up electrons or take them in, arranged in controlled sequences to produce materials with specific electrical behaviours.<\/p>\n
Nanoribbons.A new toolbox for atomic-scale design<\/p>\n
Professor Giovanni Costantini, from the School of Chemistry and the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham and corresponding author of the study, explained that while atomically precise nanoribbons have been explored before, this represents the first time they have been built by directly combining electron donor and acceptor units.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we can choose exactly where these units appear, we can design their electronic properties in advance and realise them with atomic precision,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy controlling the sequence and length of the molecular units, we can precisely programme and realise the material\u2019s electronic properties in practice \u2013 paving the way for an unprecedented level of control, essential for next-generation technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
How the nanoribbons were built<\/p>\n
Researchers led by Professor Davide Bonifazi at the University of Vienna designed and synthesised two special molecules \u2013 an electron donor and an electron acceptor. The Warwick-Birmingham team then placed these molecules onto a gold surface in a vacuum and heated them so they would naturally join into nanoribbons.<\/p>\n
The process produced three types of ribbon: donor-only, acceptor-only and mixed donor-acceptor varieties.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy embedding donor-acceptor concepts into these on-surface fabrication strategies it became possible to prepare extended nanoribbon structures that are otherwise difficult to make in solution,\u201d Bonifazi noted.<\/p>\n
Using advanced microscopes capable of imaging individual molecules and resolving atoms and chemical bonds within them, the researchers could observe the exact shape of each nanoribbon while detecting irregularities and measuring how electrons behave within the structures.<\/p>\n
Moving beyond graphene<\/p>\n
Traditionally, nanoribbons have been made from graphene, which does not naturally behave as a semiconductor unless reshaped into nanoribbons or chemically modified with other elements. Even then, controlling the material\u2019s electrical behaviour has proved difficult.<\/p>\n
The donor-acceptor approach offers a different path. As the team heated the donor and acceptor molecules, these lost bromine atoms and bonded into chains. The shape of the chains depended on how the molecules met, and impurities sometimes caused bends or defects in the structures.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that longer all-donor ribbons became better at donating electrons, while longer all-acceptor ribbons became stronger electron acceptors. In mixed ribbons, the electronic properties depended on the precise sequence of donor and acceptor units along the chain.<\/p>\n
Establishing a foundation for future design<\/p>\n
By establishing a theoretical model to describe this relationship between sequence and electronic behaviour, the team has laid a foundation for designing materials with application-specific properties through controlled subunit composition.<\/p>\n
James Lawrence, who co-led much of the work as a PhD student at the University of Warwick and is now at the National University of Singapore, described the research as creating \u201ca new toolbox for building electronic materials with atomic precision.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBuilding nanoribbons directly on a metal surface can produce perfectly defined structures, which is difficult to achieve using traditional chemistry,\u201d Lawrence pointed out.<\/p>\n
Gabriele Sosso, who oversaw the computational aspects of the work at the University of Warwick, highlighted the broader implications of the approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a modelling perspective, these nanoribbons show how atomic-scale design can be used to fine-tune real world electronic properties,\u201d Sosso commented. \u201cCapturing the effects of the supporting surface and local environment will be key to guiding this approach further.\u201d<\/p>\n
Potential applications<\/p>\n
The advance could contribute to future development across a range of fields, including flexible organic electronics that can be printed or painted onto surfaces such as smart clothing, ultra-small electronic circuits for Internet of Things devices, bioelectronics for use in animal or human implants, more efficient solar cells, new types of sensors and quantum or molecular electronics.<\/p>\n
The research team plans to apply this approach to design materials with targeted properties for organic electronics, bioelectronics and photovoltaics.<\/p>\n
The study involved researchers from the University of Birmingham, the University of Warwick, the National University of Singapore, the University of Vienna, the University of Padova and University College London.<\/p>\n
Last Updated on April 24, 2026 by Nick Ross<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An international research team has developed a method for building electronic components from chains of individual molecules, opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-629873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}