Measurement of a linear free energy relationship one molecule at a time

A systematic study of the dehydrogenation of substituted thiophenols by controlled charge injection from the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) reveals a pronounced dependence of the reaction yield on the position and the chemical nature of the substituent. We evaluate the dehydrogenation rate of para-halo-substituted species within a linear free energy relationship, namely the Hammett equation. The resultant rho value of 1.4 can faithfully predict the reaction rates of molecules that are meta-halo-substituted or para-methyl-substituted. The positive sign of rho suggests a negatively charged transition state at the core of the STM-induced process, and the magnitude of the rho value indicates that the presence of the substrate does not preclude substantial substituent effects. The applicability of the Hammett equation to single-molecule chemistry offers facile prediction of the rate of STM-based single-molecule chemistry in a field, which so far has been addressed by focusing on involved quantum-mechanical modeling of its underlying processes.