The level of control chemistry is reaching in the synthesis of graphene-type structures is fascinating. In a joint study, nitrogen-doped porous graphene nanoribbons (N-GNRs) were synthesized for the first time. These N-GNRs are ladder-type molecules whose crystal lattice contains both periodic pores and a regular pattern of nitrogen atoms.
Interestingly, these molecules don't behave as conductors, but as semiconductors, making them very attactive in electronic applications.

This collaborative project has been taken forward between research groups at DCB (Prof. Robert Häner, Prof. em. Silvio Decurtins, Prof. Ulrich Aschauer, PD Dr. Shi-Xia Liu), Department of Physics at the University of Basel, Department of Physics at the University of Lancaster, and School of Engineering at the University of Warwick.

Reference:

• R. Pawlak, X. Liu, S. Ninova, P. D'Astolfo, C. Drechsel, S. Sangtarash, R. Häner, S. Decurtins, H. Sadeghi, C. J. Lambert, U. Aschauer, S.-X. Liu, E. Meyer;
  "Bottom-up Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Porous Graphene Nanoribbons"
  J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2020, 142(29), 12568-12573; doi:10.1021/jacs.0c03946.