Two‐Dimensional Nanostructured Growth of Nanoclusters and Molecules on Insulating Surfaces

Abstract

Noncontact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM), Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and first principle calculations show that the nanostructured (001) Suzuki surface of Cd(2+) doped NaCl can be used to confine the growth of palladium clusters and functionalized brominated pentahelicene molecules into only the Suzuki regions, which contain the impurities. The Suzuki surface is an ideal model surface for nanostructuring metal clusters and molecules.

Charge-Induced Structural Changes in a Single Molecule Investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy

“…In general, the interaction of neutral molecules with insulating films comes mainly from vdW forces. Electrostatic forces can-in the case of polar functional groups or local charges-also play a significant role for the adsorption energy of molecules [62][63][64][65][66][67]. Further stabilization can arise from screening in the substrate.…”

Imaging and Manipulation of Adsorbates Using Dynamic Force Microscopy

“…The (001) surface morphology has been studied in dependence on surface diffusion and evaporation [38][39][40][41] and also on impurities [42][43][44] by the gold decoration method starting from the end of the 1950s [45]. With respect to FM nc-AFM [1], which is the high-resolution imaging technique of choice in this case, alkali halide surfaces have become standard model surfaces for many applications such as atomic structure analysis [46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54], charge identification [55][56][57], indentation [58] as well as adsorbed molecules [59,60], selfassembled molecules [61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70] but also metal NPs [17,69,[71][72][73][74][75][76].…”

“…The Suzuki surface exhibits a high density of vacancies and impurities with a mean next-neighbor distance of $ 8Å [54] so that NPs with a size of only a few nanometers already cover two cation vacancies and more [69].…”

Study of NaCl:Mn2+ nanostructures in the Suzuki phase by optical spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy

“…Alkali halides are considered excellent materials for studies on excitation processes when doped with transition metal ions, thermoluminescence is a more common application [6][7][8]. However, in recent years, they have been researched for their ability to show nanostructure (NS) conformations, with a great potential for applications in nanotechnology as mentioned before [9][10][11][12][13].…”