Photochemistry Highlights on On-Surface Synthesis

On-surface chemistry is a promising way to achieve the bottom-up construction of covalently-bonded molecular precursors into extended atomically-precise polymers adsorbed on surfaces. These polymers exhibit unprecedented physical or chemical properties which are of great interest for various potential applications. These nanostructures were mainly obtained in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) on noble metal single-crystal surfaces by thermal annealing as stimulus to provoke the polymerization with a catalytic role of the surface adatoms. Nevertheless, photons are also a powerful source of energy to induce the formation of covalent architectures, even if it is less-used on surfaces than in solution. In this minireview, we discuss the photo-induced on-surface polymerization from the basic mechanisms of photochemistry to the formation of extended polymers on different kinds of surfaces, which are characterized by scanning probe microscopies.