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Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces

[Image: see text] The unique electronic properties and functional tunability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have recently fostered high hopes for their use in flexible, green, portable, and cheap technologies. Most applications require the deposition of thin molecular films onto conductive elec...

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Autores principales: Della Pia, Ada, Riello, Massimo, Floris, Andrea, Stassen, Daphne, Jones, Tim S., Bonifazi, Davide, De Vita, Alessandro, Costantini, Giovanni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Chemical Society 2014
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4278690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25419580
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nn505063w
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author Della Pia, Ada
Riello, Massimo
Floris, Andrea
Stassen, Daphne
Jones, Tim S.
Bonifazi, Davide
De Vita, Alessandro
Costantini, Giovanni
author_facet Della Pia, Ada
Riello, Massimo
Floris, Andrea
Stassen, Daphne
Jones, Tim S.
Bonifazi, Davide
De Vita, Alessandro
Costantini, Giovanni
author_sort Della Pia, Ada
collection PubMed
description [Image: see text] The unique electronic properties and functional tunability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have recently fostered high hopes for their use in flexible, green, portable, and cheap technologies. Most applications require the deposition of thin molecular films onto conductive electrodes. The growth of the first few molecular layers represents a crucial step in the device fabrication since it determines the structure of the molecular film and the energy level alignment of the metal–organic interface. Here, we explore the formation of this interface by analyzing the interplay between reversible molecule–substrate charge transfer, yielding intermolecular repulsion, and van der Waals attractions in driving the molecular assembly. Using a series of ad hoc designed molecules to balance the two effects, we combine scanning tunnelling microscopy with atomistic simulations to study the self-assembly behavior. Our systematic analysis identifies a growth mode characterized by anomalous coarsening that we anticipate to occur in a wide class of metal–organic interfaces and which should thus be considered as integral part of the self-assembly process when depositing a molecule on a conducting surface.
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spelling pubmed-42786902015-11-24 Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces Della Pia, Ada Riello, Massimo Floris, Andrea Stassen, Daphne Jones, Tim S. Bonifazi, Davide De Vita, Alessandro Costantini, Giovanni ACS Nano [Image: see text] The unique electronic properties and functional tunability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have recently fostered high hopes for their use in flexible, green, portable, and cheap technologies. Most applications require the deposition of thin molecular films onto conductive electrodes. The growth of the first few molecular layers represents a crucial step in the device fabrication since it determines the structure of the molecular film and the energy level alignment of the metal–organic interface. Here, we explore the formation of this interface by analyzing the interplay between reversible molecule–substrate charge transfer, yielding intermolecular repulsion, and van der Waals attractions in driving the molecular assembly. Using a series of ad hoc designed molecules to balance the two effects, we combine scanning tunnelling microscopy with atomistic simulations to study the self-assembly behavior. Our systematic analysis identifies a growth mode characterized by anomalous coarsening that we anticipate to occur in a wide class of metal–organic interfaces and which should thus be considered as integral part of the self-assembly process when depositing a molecule on a conducting surface. American Chemical Society 2014-11-24 2014-12-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4278690/ /pubmed/25419580 http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nn505063w Text en Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License (http://pubs.acs.org/page/policy/authorchoice_ccby_termsofuse.html) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.
spellingShingle Della Pia, Ada
Riello, Massimo
Floris, Andrea
Stassen, Daphne
Jones, Tim S.
Bonifazi, Davide
De Vita, Alessandro
Costantini, Giovanni
Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces
title Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces
title_full Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces
title_fullStr Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces
title_full_unstemmed Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces
title_short Anomalous Coarsening Driven by Reversible Charge Transfer at Metal–Organic Interfaces
title_sort anomalous coarsening driven by reversible charge transfer at metal–organic interfaces
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4278690/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25419580
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nn505063w
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