Nirmalraj, P,Daly, R,Martin, N,Thompson, D

2017

March

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

Motion of Fullerenes around Topological Defects on Metals: Implications for the Progress of Molecular Scale Devices

Published

()

molecular dynamics nanopores fullerenes scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy SCANNING-TUNNELING-MICROSCOPY LIQUID-SOLID INTERFACE SELF-ASSEMBLED MONOLAYERS SOLID/LIQUID INTERFACE DYNAMICS AU(111) SURFACE STM SPECTROSCOPY DERIVATIVES

9

7897

7902

Research on motion of molecules in the presence of thermal noise is central for progress in two-terminal molecular scale electronic devices. However, it is still unclear what influence imperfections in bottom metal electrode surface can have on molecular motion. Here, we report a two-layer crowding study, detailing the early stages of surface motion of fullerene molecules on Au(111) with nanoscale pores in a n-tetradecane chemical environment. The motion of the fullerenes is directed by crowding of the underlying n-tetradecane molecules around the pore fringes at the liquid solid interface. We observe in real-space the growth of molecular populations around different pore geometries. Supported by atomic-scale modeling, our findings extend the established picture of molecular crowding by revealing that trapped solvent molecules serve as prime nucleation sites at nanopore fringes.

10.1021/acsami.7b00408