Growth kinetics of racemic heptahelicene-2-carboxylic acid nanowires on calcite (104).
Molecular self-assembly of racemic heptahelicene-2-carboxylic acid on a dielectric substrate at room temperature can be used to generate wire-like organic nanostructures consisting of single and double molecular rows. By means of non-contact atomic force microscopy, we investigate the growth of the wire-like pattern after deposition by experimental and theoretical means. From analyzing the time dependence of the mean row length, two distinct regimes were found. At the early post-deposition stage, the mean length grows in time. Subsequently, a crossover to a second regime is observed, where the mean row length remains nearly constant. We explain these findings by a mean-field rate equation a…
Long-Range Order Induced by Intrinsic Repulsion on an Insulating Substrate
An ordered arrangement of molecular stripes with equidistant appearance is formed upon the adsorption of 3-hydroxybenzoic acid onto calcite (10.4) held at room temperature. In a detailed analysis of the next-neighbor stripe distances measured in noncontact atomic force microscopy images at various molecular coverages, we compare the observed stripe arrangement with a random arrangement of noninteracting stripes. The experimentally obtained distance distribution deviates substantially from what is expected for a random distribution of noninteracting stripes, providing direct evidence for the existence of a repulsive interaction between the stripes. At low molecular coverage, where the averag…
Second-layer induced island morphologies in thin-film growth of fullerenes.
Deposition of fullerenes on the CaF(2)(111) surface yields peculiar island morphologies with close similarities to previous findings for (100) surfaces of other ionic crystals. By means of noncontact atomic force microscopy we find a smooth transition from compact, triangular islands to branched hexagonal islands upon lowering the temperature. While triangular islands are two monolayers high, hexagonal islands have a base of one monolayer and exhibit a complicated structure with a second-layer outer rim and trenches oriented towards the interior. By developing a kinetic growth model we unravel the microscopic mechanisms of the structure formation.
Tuning molecular self-assembly on bulk insulator surfaces by anchoring of the organic building blocks.
Molecular self-assembly constitutes a versatile strategy for creating functional structures on surfaces. Tuning the subtle balance between intermolecular and molecule-surface interactions allows structure formation to be tailored at the single-molecule level. While metal surfaces usually exhibit interaction strengths in an energy range that favors molecular self-assembly, dielectric surfaces having low surface energies often lack sufficient interactions with adsorbed molecules. As a consequence, application-relevant, bulk insulating materials pose significant challenges when considering them as supporting substrates for molecular self-assembly. Here, the current status of molecular self-ass…