Description of ferrocenylalkylthiol SAMs on gold by molecular dynamics simulations

Molecular dynamics simulations of mixed monolayers consisting of Fc(CH2)12S-/C10S-Au SAMs are carried out to calculate structural (density profiles, angular distributions, positions of atoms) and energetic properties. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible inhomogeneity of the neutral ferrocene moieties within the monolayer. Five systems have been studied using different grafting densities for the ferrocenylalkylthiolates. The angular distributions are described in terms of the relative contributions from isolated and clustered ferrocene moieties in the binary SAMs. It is shown that the energetic contributions strongly depend on the state of the ferrocene. The ability of molecular dynamics simulations to enable better understanding the SAM structure is illustrated in this work.