ABSTRACT
The ultra-high vacuum (UHV) room temperature adsorption of benzotriazole (BTAH), a well-known corrosion inhibitor for copper, has been investigated on the pristine Au(111) surface using a combination of surface sensitive techniques. The dimensionality of the molecule is reduced from the 3D crystal structure to a 2-dimensional surface confinement, which induces the formation of hydrogen bonded 1-dimensional molecular chains consisting of alternating pro-S and pro-R enantiomers mainly. The 0-dimensional system is characteristic of gas-phase BTAH, which undergoes a tautomeric equilibrium, with consequences for the resulting adsorbed species. The balance between hydrogen bonding, inter-chain van der Waals interactions and surface-molecule interactions, and the correlation with the dimensionality of the system, are discussed in light of the experimental results and a computational description of the observed features.
ABSTRACT
STM imaging following the adsorption of (S)-lysine on Au{111} leads to the observation of Au nanofingers whose growth directions correlate with the unit cell vectors of ordered 2-D phases of lysine. The likely mechanism of surface restructuring is discussed.
