Molecular Embroidering of Graphene

In the present work, we developed for the first time a practical approach to achieve multiply pattterning of graphene in a way of “molecular graphene embroidery” (as analogy to the well-known fabric embroidery existing in macroscopic world) by manipulating the graphene chemistry to generate regular multiply functionalized patterns consisting of concentric regions of covalent addend binding. Molecular graphene embroidery towards these spatially resolved 2D-hetero-architectures was accomplished by repetitive electron-beam lithography (EBL)/reduction/covalent-binding sequences starting with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) covered graphene deposited on a reactive SiO₂/Si substrate, a key factor for strain-free antaratopic additions.