High mobility and ballistic transport properties of charge carriers make graphene an ideal material for electronic device fabrication. However, graphene lacks a bandgap around the Fermi level, which is the defining concept for semiconductor materials and essential for controlling the conductivity by electronic means. Several approaches to engineer a bandgap opening in graphene have been suggested, but until recently experimental realizations have been limited to gap openings too small for room temperature operation. By hydrogen functionalization of graphene we have demonstrated the opening of a bandgap of ~1.0 eV, sufficiently large for real applications. The potential of this method, as well as the potentials and limitations of chemical functionalization of graphene, free-standing and on various substrates, will be discussed.  

Liv Hornekær is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy and iNANO, University of Aarhus, where she carries out research within the fields of surface astrophysics and nanoscience. Her research focuses on the interaction of atomic hydrogen with carbonaceous materials for hydrogen storage, control of surface conductivity via hydrogen patterning of graphite/graphene surfaces and the formation of pre-biotic molecules under interstellar conditions via surface catalysis.

Group webpage: http://www.phys.au.dk/surface-dynamics