Molybdenum disulfide (molybdenite) monolayer islands and flakes have been grown on a copper surface at comparatively low temperature and mild conditions through sulfur loading of the substrate using thiophenol (benzenethiol) followed by the evaporation of Mo atoms and annealing. The MoS(2) islands show a regular Moiré pattern in scanning tunneling microscopy, attesting to their atomic ordering and high quality. They are all aligned with the substrate high-symmetry directions providing for rotational-domain-free monolayer growth.

Nanoscale confinement of adsorbed CO molecules in an anthraquinone network on Cu(111) with a pore size of ≈4  nm arranges the CO molecules in a shell structure that coincides with the distribution of substrate confined electronic states. Molecules occupy the states approximately in the sequence of rising electron energy. Despite the sixfold symmetry of the pore boundary itself, the adsorbate distribution adopts the threefold symmetry of the network-substrate system, highlighting the importance of the substrate even for such quasi-free-electron systems.

Anthraquinone self-assembles on Cu(111) into a giant honeycomb network with exactly three molecules on each side. Here we propose that the exceptional degree of order achieved in this system can be explained as a consequence of the confinement of substrate electrons in the pores, with the pore size tailored so that the confined electrons can adopt a noble-gas-like two-dimensional quasi-atom configuration with two filled shells. Formation of identical pores in a related adsorption system (at different overall periodicity due to the different molecule size) corroborates this concept. A combination of photoemission spectroscopy with density functional theory computations (including van der Waals interactions) of adsorbate-substrate interactions allows quantum mechanical modeling of the spectra of the resultant quasi-atoms and their energetics.

First principles calculations of the geometric and electronic structures of a single layer of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) on Cu(111) utilizing the van der Waals density functional show three energetically equivalent stacking types and a Moiré pattern whose periodicity is in agreement with experimental findings. The layer is found not to be purely physisorbed on the surface, rather there exists a chemical interaction between it and the Cu surface atoms. We also find that the MoS2 film is not appreciably buckled, while the top Cu layer gets reorganized and vertically disordered. The sizes of Moiré patterns for a single layer of MoS2 adsorbed on other close packed metal surfaces are also estimated by minimizing the lattice mismatch between the film and the substrate.

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