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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

Preparation of Carbon Nanosheets at Room Temperature
Published on: March 8, 2016
Simple and complex lattices of N-alkyl fatty acid amides on a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite surface
Bo Zou1, Katharina Dreger, Christian Mück-Lichtenfeld
1Physikalisches Institut, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Wilhelm-Klemm-Str. 10, D-48149, Münster, Germany.
Abstract:
STM investigations of three N-alkyl fatty acid amide molecules have been carried out to get information of their molecular arrangement on a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite surface. With variable positions of amide along the alkyl chain, complex lattices with different lattice constants were observed. Besides the lattices with a repeat unit matching one or two molecular lengths, a lattice with a repeat unit corresponding to three molecular lengths was found. In addition, the portion of different lattices depends on the length of the shorter alkyl chain. DFT-D calculations point to interactions of antiparallel oriented dipoles due to the amide group, which are distance dependent and thus larger for shorter N-alkyl chains.
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