Self-Assembly Strategy for Fabricating Connected Graphene Nanoribbons.

We use self-assembly to fabricate and to connect precise graphene nanoribbons end to end. Combining scanning tunneling microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and density functional theory, we characterize the chemical and electronic aspects of the interconnections between ribbons. We demonstrate how the substrate effects of our self-assembly can be exploited to fabricate graphene structures connected to desired electrodes.