title: C60/corannulene on Cu(110): a surface-supported bistable buckybowl-buckyball host-guest system.
abstract: Corannulene (COR) buckybowls were proposed as near ideal hosts for fullerene C60, but direct complexation of C60 and COR has remained a challenge in supramolecular chemistry. We report the formation of surface-supported COR-C60 host-guest complexes by deposition of C60 onto a COR lattice on Cu(110). Variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy studies reveal two distinctly different states of C60 on the COR host lattice, with different binding energies and bowl-ball separations. The transition from a weakly bound precursor state to a strongly bound host-guest complex is found to be thermally activated. Simple model calculations show that this bistability originates from a subtle interplay between homo- and heteromolecular interactions.
authors.affiliation: nanotech@surfaces Laboratory, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, Feuerwerkerstrasse 39, 3602 Thun, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Wende
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Passerone
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ruffieux
authors.forename: Kamel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Aït-Mansour
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Gröning
authors.forename: Erio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tosatti
authors.forename: Jay S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Siegel
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fasel