1. Department of Chemistry,


2. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science,


3. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, MS-222, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

Correspondence to: James M. Tour^1,2,3 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.M.T. (Email: tour@rice.edu).

Graphene, or single-layered graphite, with its high crystallinity and interesting semimetal electronic properties, has emerged as an exciting two-dimensional material showing great promise for the fabrication of nanoscale devices^{1, 2, 3}. Thin, elongated strips of graphene that possess straight edges, termed graphene ribbons, gradually transform from semiconductors to semimetals as their width increases^{4, 5, 6, 7}, and represent a particularly versatile variety of graphene. Several lithographic^{7, 8}, chemical^{9, 10, 11} and synthetic¹² procedures are known to produce microscopic samples of graphene nanoribbons, and one chemical vapour deposition process¹³ has successfully produced macroscopic quantities of nanoribbons at 950 °C. Here we describe a simple solution-based oxidative process for producing a nearly 100% yield of nanoribbon structures by lengthwise cutting and unravelling of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) side walls. Although oxidative shortening of MWCNTs has previously been achieved¹⁴, lengthwise cutting is hitherto unreported. Ribbon structures with high water solubility are obtained. Subsequent chemical reduction of the nanoribbons from MWCNTs results in restoration of electrical conductivity. These early results affording nanoribbons could eventually lead to applications in fields of electronics and composite materials where bulk quantities of nanoribbons are required^{15, 16, 17}.