Molecular islands at the liquid-solid interface
Yi Hu1,2, Kazukuni Tahara3, Steven De Feyter1
1Division of Molecular Imaging and Photonics, Department of Chemistry, KU Leuven, 3001 Leuven, Belgium. steven.defeyter@kuleuven.be.
Abstract:
Molecular islands of various shapes and sizes composed of a few tens of molecules only are formed at the liquid-solid interface, at room temperature, by an alkoxylated dehydrobenzo[12]annulene (DBA) derivative. Molecules are packed into hexagons. Scanning tunneling microscopy reveals the variety in molecular island structures and their stability. For molecular islands up to 7 hexagonal pores, all 244 possible structures are simulated and compared with experimental observations. Force field calculations give insights into the relative stability of the molecular islands and the factors contributing to it.
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