Pentacene on Ag(111): correlation of bonding distance with intermolecular interaction and order

We report coverage and temperature dependent bonding distances of vacuum-sublimed pentacene (PEN) submonolayers on Ag(111) obtained by the X-ray standing wave technique. The average vertical bonding distance of 2.98 Å at room temperature for 0.50 monolayer (ML) coverage increases to 3.12 Å for 0.75 ML due to competing intermolecular and adsorbate-substrate interactions. In contrast, decreasing the temperature from 295 to 145 K does not impact the bonding distance despite the concomitant transition from a "liquidlike" to an ordered molecular arrangement. In combination with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results, we could identify "soft chemisorption" with a subtle balance of molecule-molecule and substrate-molecule interactions as being responsible for this special adsorption behavior. Thus our study sheds light not only on the interface between PEN and Ag(111), but also on fundamental adsorption processes of organic adsorbates on metals in the context of chemi- and physisorption.