Steering on-surface reactions through molecular steric hindrance and molecule-substrate van der Waals interactions

On-surface synthesis is a rapidly developing field involving chemical reactions on well-defined solid surfaces to access synthesis of low-dimensional organic nanostructures which cannot be achieved via traditional solution chemistry. On-surface reactions critically depend on a high degree of chemoselectivity in order to achieve an optimum balance between target structure and possible side products. Here, we demonstrate synthesis of graphene nanoribbons with a large unit cell based on steric hindrance-induced complete chemoselectivity as revealed by scanning probe microscopy measurements and density functional theory calculations. Our results disclose that combined molecule-substrate van der Waals interactions and intermolecular steric hindrance promote a selective aryl-aryl coupling, giving rise to high-quality uniform graphene nanostructures. The established coupling strategy has been used to synthesize two types of graphene nanoribbons with different edge topologies inducing a pronounced variation of the electronic energy gaps. The demonstrated chemoselectivity is representative for n-anthryl precursor molecules and may be further exploited to synthesize graphene nanoribbons with novel electronic, topological and magnetic properties with implications for electronic and spintronic applications. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s44214-022-00023-9.