Formation of complex molecular nanostructures by on-surface coupling of p-aminophenol

N. RUIZ DEL ARBOL ; G. OTERO-IRURUETA; P. DE ANDRÉS; M. SVEC; D. SERRATE; L. FLOREANO; J.A. MARTÍN-GAGO ; I. PALACIO; J. I. MARTÍNEZ; O. STETSOVYCH; P. JELINEK; P. JACOBSON; G. J. ELLIS; C. SÁNCHEZ-SÁNCHEZ; L.M. RODRÍGUEZ; P. MUTOMBO; M. PIANTEK; L. GRILL ; M. F. LÓPEZ

Conferencia; IBERTRIVA 2019; 2019

One of the potential challenges in material science is the synthesis of novel materials withnew properties. On-surface chemistry is a promising and versatile route at atomic scale toaddress the goal of achieving chemical reactions, which are impossible or more difficult byother routes. Interestingly, for the same molecular precursor, this approach results in thesynthesis of different nanostructures depending on the catalyst surface used in the process[1].In this work, we have used on-surface chemistry to synthetize different low dimensionalnanostructures by using different surfaces, Cu(110) or Pt(111). Starting from the samemolecular precursor, p-aminophenol (p-Ap) deposited on each surface, different reactionsare promoted by a thermal annealing process. As determined by a multi-techniqueinvestigation (nc-AFM/STM, XPS, NEXAFS and LEED) the reaction mechanisms occurringat the surface are different for each metal, resulting in different final outcomes, polyanilineoligomers for the Pt(111) substrate and quinoazines (QAz) for the Cu(111) substrate.