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Royal Society of Chemistry, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 3(17), p. 2088-2093

DOI: 10.1039/c4cp04848b

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Evidence of benzenoid domains in nanographenes

Journal article published in 2014 by Matteo Baldoni ORCID, Francesco Mercuri
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

Calculations based on density functional theory demonstrate the occurrence of local deformations of the perfect honeycomb lattice in nanographenes to form arrangements, with triangular symmetry, composed by six-membered ring patterns. The formation of these locally regular superstructures, which can be considered as benzenoid-like domains on the 2D graphene lattice, is ascribed to the gain in resonance energy deriving from aromaticity. The relationship between atomistic morphology of nanographenes and details of the relaxed structure is rationalized in terms of Clar’s theory of the aromatic sextet and by extending concepts borrowed from valence bond theory to 2D carbon nanostructures. Namely, two regular arrangements can be evidenced, defined as Clar (fully benzenoid) and Kekulé domains, which correspond to two different regular bond patterns in sets of adjacent six-membered rings. Our findings are compatible with recent experiments and have potentially relevant consequences in the development of novel electronics devices based on graphene materials.