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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Synthesis and Characterization of Self-Assembled Metal-Organic Framework Monolayers Using Polymer-Coated Particles
Published on: June 14, 2024
Frustrated ostwald ripening in self-assembled monolayers of cruciform pi-systems
Gina M Florio1, Jennifer E Klare, Michelle O Pasamba
1Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.
Abstract:
This study details a scanning tunneling microscopy investigation into the mechanism of chiral grain growth in highly ordered, self-assembled monolayer films composed of cruciform pi-systems. Although the molecules themselves are achiral, when they adsorb from solution onto graphite, they adopt a gear-like conformation that, by virtue of the surface, is chiral. These handed subunits arrange themselves into enantiomeric two-dimensional domains. The unique finding from this study is that Ostwald ripening is frustrated between domain boundaries that are of opposite chirality because direct interconversion between the chiral units on the surface is energetically inhibited.
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