Bonding Asymmetry and Adatoms in Low-Density Self-Assembled Monolayers of Dithiols on Au(111)

Aisyah M. Sharif, D. Noel Buckley, Manfred Buck, Christophe Silien

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The involvement of Au adatoms in the interfacial structure of monothiols on Au(111) is now established, but the :same issue is virtually unexplored in the case of dithiols. To gain more insight into the latter, we have studied by scanning tunneling microscopy the self-assembly of two prototypic symmetric dithiols (1,6-hexanedithiol and biphenyl-4,4'-dimethanethiol) from dilute aqueous solutions and correlated their growth with the deconstruction of the Au(111) herringbone pattern known to produce adatoms. For both molecules, we determine an initial low-density monolayer Where the Molecules are lying down and paired by 0.45 angstrom tall protrusions, assigned to Au adatoms. The other terminal group is imaged differently, revealing a strong asymmetry in the dithiol bonding. The formation of vacancy islands and, thus, the extraction of additional adatoms from terraces are detected only after substantial molecular rearrangement and loss of bonding asymmetry.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)21800-21803
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry C
Volume115
Issue number44
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Nov 2011

Keywords

  • SCANNING-TUNNELING-MICROSCOPY
  • GOLD
  • DIFFRACTION
  • SYSTEM

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