title: On-surface solvent-free crystal-to-co-crystal conversion by non-covalent interactions.
abstract: Enabling and understanding new methodologies to fabricate molecular assemblies driven by intermolecular interactions is fundamental in chemistry. Such forces can be used to control crystal growth and enable surface-confinement of these materials, which remains challenging. Here we demonstrate for the first time, a solvent-free on-surface crystal-to-co-crystal conversion process driven by halogen bonding (XB). By exposing a polycrystalline organic material, consisting of a XB-acceptor moiety, to the vapors of a complementary XB-donor compound, the corresponding halogen-bonded co-crystals were formed. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this approach can also be utilized for non-crystalline materials to afford surface-confined organic composites. Our stepwise vapor-based approach offers a new strategy for the formation of hybrid supramolecular materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Organic Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science , 234 Herzl St., Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Meital
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boterashvili
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lahav
authors.forename: Sreejith
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shankar
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Facchetti
authors.forename: Milko E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: van der Boom