Thanks to this, a wide variety of novel 0D, 1D and 2D nanostructures have been achieved, demonstrating the capabilities of this methodology to synthesize truly lowdimensional nanostructures just by properly selecting the organic precursor and the aimed reaction. However, at the same time, those UHV conditions have kept this strategy far away from applications, with one of the great challenges of the field being the synthesis and application of truly functional materials. In this sense, some important efforts are being devoted in this direction, with keynote examples demonstrating the potential feasibility of applying those on-surface synthesized nanomaterials in technological applications, such as the fabrication of field effect transistors (FET) based on graphene nanoribbons , nitrogen-doped nanoporous graphene with prospective in photocatalytic and membrane applications , porphyrin-based nanostructures with potential applications in energy harvesting , or the achievement of a promising strategy to protect the reactive zigzag edges of chiral GNRs . Nonetheless, there is still a long way to go. So far, most of the research in the field has been centered on the use of fully carbon-based precursors to yield graphene-based nanostructures given the "simplicity" and robustness of carbon-based chemistry, while little attention has been paid to more complex heteroatomic precursors that, indeed, can incorporate new functionalities.