Orientational Epitaxy of van der Waals Molecular Heterostructures

Abstract

The shape of individual building blocks is an important parameter in bottom-up self-assembly of nanostructured materials. A simple shape change from sphere to spheroid can significantly affect the assembly process due to the modification to the orientational degrees of freedom. When a layer of spheres is placed upon a layer of spheroids, the strain at the interface can be minimized by the spheroid taking a special orientation. C fullerenes represent the smallest spheroids, and their interaction with a sphere-like C is investigated. We find that the orientation of the C within a close-packed C layer can be steered by contacting a layer of C. This orientational steering phenomenon is potentially useful for epitaxial growth of multilayer van der Waals molecular heterostructures.

Defect Generation and Surface Functionalization on Epitaxial Blue Phosphorene by C60 Adsorption

“…Mild annealing at 400 K effectively removes the physisorbed C 60 and generates randomly dispersed individual C 60 molecules, as shown in Figure A (Figure S1A,B). This temperature is comparable with stacking C 60 arrays on molecular templates (330 K) and the formation of densely packed C 60 islands on graphite (425 K) but much lower than the typical annealing temperature on Au(111) (540 K) and Ag(111) (685 K). Scrutinizing the adsorption sites of C 60 , we find that the defect-free areas are free-from molecules, whereas the C 60 molecules preferentially reside at the domain boundaries surrounded by a disordered phase, which are generated after the adsorption of C 60 .…”

Two-Dimensional van der Waals Supramolecular Frameworks from Co-Hosted Molecular Assembly and C60 Dimerization

“…With appropriate experimental conditions (such as suitable substrate temperature and thiols coverage), other thiols could also form similar striped phases with different lengths, as reported previously . C 60 molecules are deposited onto the OT monolayer at RT using a homemade sublimation source. , …”

“…20 C 60 molecules are deposited onto the OT monolayer at RT using a homemade sublimation source. 21,22 ■ RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Formation of C 60 /OT Porous Framework. Previous studies of C 60 deposition onto the saturated OT monolayer (0.33 ML) shows that the OT monolayer with saturation coverage is not permissible to C 60 14 with only a very small number of C 60 molecules getting incorporated into the OT monolayer via the defect sites.…”

Self-Defined Transition State in Hybrid C70–Au Clusters Created by the Scanning Tunneling Microscope Tip

“…We observed that once the cluster frame is broken via the tip displacement on a selected molecule, it diffuses on the surface and attaches a cluster or the step edges or stays around the cluster. The interaction among C 70 molecules is the van der Waals interaction, which is also responsible for the molecular displacement . Therefore, right after manipulation, the cluster can reshape or transform another cluster with an exact number of C 70 molecules and Au atoms.…”

“…The interaction among C 70 molecules is the van der Waals interaction, which is also responsible for the molecular displacement. 29 Therefore, right after manipulation, the cluster can reshape or transform another cluster with an exact number of C 70 molecules and Au atoms. Further removing C 70 molecules results in inevitable Au atoms leave due to squeezing cluster components due to van der Waals force, 19 so transformation or intermediate transition state may occur.…”