Issue 28, 2020

Nanoscale tailoring of supramolecular crystals via an oriented external electric field

Abstract

The oriented external electric field of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has recently been adapted for controlling the chemical reaction and supramolecular phase transition at surfaces with molecular precision. However, to date, advance controls using such electric-fields for crystal engineering have not been achieved yet. Here, we present how the directional electric-field of an STM can be utilized to harness supramolecular crystallization on a solid surface. We show that a glass-like random-tiling assembly composed of p-terphenyl-3,5,3′,5′-tetracarboxylic acid can transform into close-packed periodic assemblies under positive substrate bias conditions at the liquid/solid interface. Importantly, the nucleation and subsequent crystal growth for such field-induced products can be artificially tailored at the early stage in a real-time fashion. Through this method, we were able to produce a two-dimensional supramolecular single crystal. The as-prepared crystals with apparent brightness are ascribed to a spectroscopic feature linked to the electron density of states, which is thus strongly STM bias dependent.

Graphical abstract: Nanoscale tailoring of supramolecular crystals via an oriented external electric field

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 Mar 2020
Accepted
04 May 2020
First published
04 May 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 15072-15080

Nanoscale tailoring of supramolecular crystals via an oriented external electric field

X. Zeng, S. B. Khan, A. Mahmood and S. Lee, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 15072 DOI: 10.1039/D0NR01946A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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