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Updated: Feb 11, 2026

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Separation of a Racemic Mixture of Two-Dimensional Molecular Clusters by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
Matthias Böhringer1, Karina Morgenstern1, Wolf-Dieter Schneider1
1Institut de Physique Expérimentale, Université de Lausanne (Switzerland).
Abstract:
Adsorption of sub-monolayer amounts of 1-nitronaphthalene (NN) onto Au(111) leads to the aggregation of NN decamers, which exhibit two-dimensional chirality and represent a racemic mixture. In analogy to Pasteur's experiment of 1848 a scanning tunneling microscope can be used to discriminate and separate the enantiomers on a molecular scale.
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