One- and two-dimensional carbon nanostructures based on unfolded buckyballs: An ab initio investigation of their electronic properties

Motivated by recent experimental research on the temperature-induced unfold of C60 molecules, carbon nanostructures are proposed based on the complex assemblies of molecules resulting from the hierarchical unzipping of fullerene cages. Such assemblies can result in either 1D ribbons or 2D porous membrane systems whose electronic structure is studied here using ab initio calculations. These ribbons and membranes show versatile electronic behaviors such as direct or indirect band gaps that can be fine tuned as a function of the details of the atomic structure, such as the type of assembly and ribbon width.