Coexistence of racemic and homochiral two-dimensional lattices formed by a prochiral molecule: dicarboxystilbene on Cu(110).
Dicarboxystilbene, a molecule that becomes chiral in the adsorbed state through the loss of its improper axis of rotation, forms long-range "handed" structures when adsorbed on Cu(110) as revealed by scanning tunnelling microscopy. We show that these structures are created from chiral "adsorption complex" building blocks, giving rise to a complete set of racemic and enantiomerically pure structural assemblies. We interpret the formation of these structures in terms of a balance between hydrogen bond mediated intermolecular interactions and the adsorbate-surface structural relationship and discuss the reasons for temperature-induced conversion from the metastable enantiomerically pure to the racemic structure.
Departamento Física de Materiales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Rocío
R
Cortés
Arantzazu
A
Mascaraque
Philipp
P
Schmidt-Weber
Hugo
H
Dil
Thorsten U
TU
Kampen
Karsten
K
Horn