A new carbon form with potential for electronics

Graphyne is a crystalline form of carbon that is distinct from both diamond and graphite. Unlike diamond, where each atom possesses four immediate neighbors, or graphite, where each atom has three, graphyne’s structure combines two-coordinate and three-coordinate carbons.

Computational models suggest that graphyne has highly compelling electronic, mechanical and optical properties. It is predicted to be a semiconductor with a band gap appropriate for electronic devices, ultra-high charge carrier mobility far surpassing that of silicon, and ultimate strength comparable to that of graphene.

Applications of graphyne in carbon electronics, energy harvesting and storage, gas separations and catalysis have been proposed. While graphyne was first theoretically predicted more than three decades ago, its synthesis remained elusive.

The Rodionov group at CWRU developed the first practical synthesis of graphyne in 2022, and their work was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Now, in a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Rodionov group and an international team of collaborators from the University of Texas at Dallas, Georgia Institute of Technology, Deakin University (Australia), and Campinas University (Brazil) describe a transformation of graphyne in an entirely different form of carbon.

This transformation completely eliminates all the two-coordinate acetylenic carbons from graphyne, yet it preserves the layered structure. The transformation also modifies the band gap of the material. This finding may enable future techniques for fabricating all-carbon electronic chips with performance unattainable by the current silicon technology.