1. Highly ordered molecular rotor matrix on a nanopatterned template: titanyl phthalocyanine molecules on FeO/Pt(111)
- Author
-
Min Huang, Shuangzan Lu, Qinmin Guo, Zhihui Qin, Gengyu Cao, and Yinghui Yu
- Subjects
Fabrication ,Materials science ,Bioengineering ,02 engineering and technology ,Substrate (electronics) ,010402 general chemistry ,01 natural sciences ,law.invention ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,law ,Molecule ,General Materials Science ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,Rotor (electric) ,Mechanical Engineering ,General Chemistry ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,Molecular machine ,0104 chemical sciences ,chemistry ,Mechanics of Materials ,Chemical physics ,Phthalocyanine ,Density functional theory ,Scanning tunneling microscope ,0210 nano-technology - Abstract
Molecular rotors, motors and gears play important roles in artificial molecular machines, in which rotor and motor matrices are highly desirable for large-scale bottom-up fabrication of molecular machines. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of a highly ordered molecular rotor matrix by depositing nonplanar dipolar titanyl phthalocyanine (TiOPc, C32H16N8OTi) molecules on a Moire patterned dipolar FeO/Pt(111) substrate. TiOPc molecules with O atoms pointing outwards from the substrate (upward) or towards the substrate (downward) are alternatively adsorbed on the fcc sites by strong lateral confinement. The adsorbed molecules, i.e. two kinds of molecular rotors, show different scanning tunneling microscopy images, thermal stabilities and rotational characteristics. Density functional theory calculations clarify that TiOPc molecules anchoring upwards with high adsorption energies correspond to low-rotational-rate rotors, while those anchoring downwards with low adsorption energies correspond to high-rotational-rate rotors. A robust rotor matrix fully occupied by low-rate rotors is fabricated by depositing molecules on the substrate at elevated temperature. Such a paradigm opens up a promising route to fabricate functional molecular rotor matrices, driven motor matrices and even gear groups on solid substrates.
- Published
- 2018