Engineering porous and compact two-dimensional nanoarchitectures on surfaces taking advantage of bisterpyridine-derivatives self-assembly

Fabien Silly (1) , Yann Kervella (2) , Bruno Jousselme (2, 3)

1 SPEC - UMR3680 - Service de physique de l'état condensé
2 LSP - Laboratoire de Spectrométrie Physique
3 LICSEN UMR 3685 - Laboratoire Innovation en Chimie des Surfaces et NanoSciences

The self-assembly of two bis-terpyridine derivatives is experimentally investigated at the nanometer scale. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) reveals that two-dimensional compact and porous nanoarchitectures can be engineered by changing the length of terpyridine spacer; i.e. a benzene ring or a quaterthiophene (4T) unit. In both cases the molecular nanoarchitecture appears to be stabilized by double hydrogen-bonds between molecular terpyridine groups. The STM images suggest however that terpyridine groups adopt different conformations, s-cis and s-trans as well as s-trans and s-trans conformations, in the two self-assembled organic layers.

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Fabien Silly, Yann Kervella, Bruno Jousselme. Engineering porous and compact two-dimensional nanoarchitectures on surfaces taking advantage of bisterpyridine-derivatives self-assembly. RSC Advances, 2015, 5, pp.101740. ⟨10.1039/c5ra22117j⟩. ⟨cea-01349731⟩