Surface-Confined Supramolecular Self-Assembly of Molecular Nanocranes for Chemically Lifting and Positioning C60 above a Conducting Substrate.
2D supramolecular self-assembly is a good way to form well-defined nanostructures on various substrates. One of the current challenges is to extend this approach to 3D functional building blocks. Here, we address this issue by providing a strategy for the controlled lifting and positioning of functional units above a graphitic substrate. This is the first time that multistory cyclophane-based 3D tectons incorporating C60 units have been designed and synthesized. Molecular modelling provides a description of the 3D geometries and evidences the flexible character of the building blocks. Despite this later feature, the supramolecular self-assembly of Janus tectons on HOPG yields well-ordered adlayers incorporating C60 arrays at well-defined mean distances from the surface. As our approach is not limited to C60 , the results reported here open-up possibilities for applications where the topological and electronic interactions between the substrate and the functional unit are of prime importance.
Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculaire, Equipe Chimie des Polymères, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, CNRS, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.|Institut für Nanotechnologie (INT), Karlsruhe Institut für Technologie (KIT), Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
Ping
P
Du
Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculaire, Equipe Chimie des Polymères, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, CNRS, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.
David
D
Kreher
Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculaire, Equipe Chimie des Polymères, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, CNRS, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.
Fabrice
F
Mathevet
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, INAC-SCIB, 38000, Grenoble, France.
Pascale
P
Maldivi
Service de Physique de l'Etat Condensé (SPEC), UMR CEA-CNRS 3680, IRAMIS, CEA Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France. fabrice.charra@cea.fr.
Fabrice
F
Charra
Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculaire, Equipe Chimie des Polymères, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, CNRS, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France. andre-jean.attias@upmc.fr.
André-Jean
AJ
Attias
cyclophanes; fullerenes; molecular modeling; scanning probe microscopy; self-assembly