The synthesis of new forms of carbon is an area of keen interest for those searching for materials with novel electrical, optical and magnetic properties for the next generation of device technology.
Organic chemists in China have now found a way to cross-couple hexaethynylbenzene on a copper surface to produce a large area of the carbon allotrope, graphdiyne. This material was first proposed in the early 1990s and predicted to be the most stable of various non-natural carbon allotropes akin to graphene. The team synthesized a thin film semiconductor with an area of 360 mm2.
G. Li, Y. Li, H. Liu, Y. Guo, Y. Li, D. Zhu,
Chem. Commun. 2010, 46, 3256 – 3258
