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Defects play a critical role for the functionality and performance of materials, but the understanding of the related effects is often lacking, because the typically low concentrations of defects make them difficult to study. A prominent case is the topological defects in two-dimensional materials such as graphene. The performance of graphene-based (opto-)electronic devices depends critically on the properties of the graphene/metal interfaces at the contacting electrodes. The question of how these interface properties depend on the ubiquitous topological defects in graphene is of high practical relevance, but could not be answered so far. Here, we focus on the prototypical Stone–Wales (S–W) topological defect and combine theoretical analysis with experimental investigations of molecular model systems. We show that the embedded defects undergo enhanced bonding and electron transfer with a copper surface, compared to regular graphene. These findings are experimentally corroborated using molecular models, where azupyrene mimics the S–W defect, while its isomer pyrene represents the ideal graphene structure. Experimental interaction energies, electronic-structure analysis, and adsorption distance differences confirm the defect-controlled bonding quantitatively. Our study reveals the important role of defects for the electronic coupling at graphene/metal interfaces and suggests that topological defect engineering can be used for performance control.\ud \ud

Indium tribromide catalysed the transfer hydrogenation from dihydroaromatic compounds, such as the commercially available γ‐terpinene, to enones, which resulted in the cyclisation to trisubstituted furan derivatives. The reaction was initiated by a Michael addition of a hydride nucleophile to the enone subunit followed by a Lewis‐acid‐assisted cyclisation and the formation of a furan–indium intermediate and a Wheland intermediate derived from the dihydroaromatic starting material. The product was formed by protonation from the Wheland complex and replaced the indium tribromide substituent. In addition, a site‐specific deuterium labelling of the dihydroaromatic HD surrogates resulted in site specific labelling of the products and gave useful insights into the reaction mechanism by H–D scrambling., InBr3 is used as functional‐group‐tolerant catalyst for the transfer hydrogenation from γ‐terpinene as H2 surrogate to initiate the cyclisation of 2‐alkynyl‐substituted enones to trisubstituted furans in good yields. Design of Experiments was used to optimise the reaction conditions with a few experiments to almost quantitative yields and deuterium‐labelling experiments gave valuable mechanistic insights.

A diastereoselective hydroalkynylation of terminal alkynes to form the head‐to‐head dimerization products by two different cobalt‐phosphine catalyst system is reported. The use of the bidentate ligand dppp and additional triphenylphosphine led to the selective formation of the (E)‐1,3‐enynes (E:Z>99:1) in good to excellent yields, while the tridentate ligand TriPhos led to the corresponding (Z)‐1,3‐enynes in moderate to good yields with excellent stereoselectivities (up to E:Z=1:99). Both pre‐catalysts are easy to handle, because of their stability under atmospheric conditions. The optimized reaction conditions were identified by the Design of Experiments (DoE) approach, which has not been used before in cobalt‐catalysed reaction optimisation. DoE decreased the number of required reactions to a minimum., Cobalt catalysis at a crossroad: The choice of the ligands in a cobalt‐catalysed hydroalkynylation of terminal alkynes is decisive to form the dimerization products in a diastereoselective fashion. The (E)‐1,3‐enynes are formed in good to excellent yields and outstanding selectivities (E:Z>99:1), while the corresponding (Z)‐1,3‐enynes were isolated in moderate to good yields with excellent stereoselectivities (up to E:Z=1:99).

Ultra-high vacuum deposition of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons azupyrene and pyrene onto a Cu(111) surface held at a temperature of 1000 K is herein shown to result in the formation of graphene. The presence of graphene was proven using scanning tunneling microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and low energy electron diffraction. The precursors, azupyrene and pyrene, are comparatively large aromatic molecules in contrast to more commonly employed precursors like methane or ethylene. While the formation of the hexagonal graphene lattice could naively be expected when pyrene is used as a precursor, the situation is more complex for azupyrene. In this case, the non-alternant topology of azupyrene with only 5- and 7-membered rings must be altered to form the observed hexagonal graphene lattice. Such a rearrangement, converting a non-alternant topology into an alternant one, is in line with previous reports describing similar topological alterations, including the isomerization of molecular azupyrene to pyrene. The thermal synthesis route to graphene, presented here, is achievable at comparatively low temperatures and under ultra-high vacuum conditions, which may enable further investigations of the growth process in a strictly controlled and clean environment that is not accessible with traditional precursors.

Pyrene derivatives play a prominent role in organic electronic devices, including field effect transistors, light emitting diodes, and solar cells. The flexibility in the desired properties has previously been achieved by variation of substituents at the periphery of the pyrene backbone. In contrast, the influence of the topology of the central π‐electron system on the relevant properties such as the band gap or the fluorescence behavior has not yet been addressed. In this work, pyrene is compared with its structural isomer azupyrene, which has a π‐electron system with non‐alternant topology. Using photoelectron spectroscopy, near edge X‐ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy, and other methods, it is shown that the electronic band gap of azupyrene is by 0.72 eV smaller than that of pyrene. The difference of the optical band gaps is even larger with 1.09 eV, as determined by ultraviolet–visible absorption spectroscopy. The non‐alternant nature of azupyrene is also associated with a more localized charge distribution. Further insight is provided by density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the molecular properties and ab initio coupled cluster calculations of the optical transitions. The concept of aromaticity is used to interpret the major topology‐related differences., Topological Tuning: Molecular organic materials for application in organic electronics can be tailored by topological design of their π‐electron systems, instead of conventional tailoring by peripheral substituents. This is shown by a multi‐technique comparison of pyrene with its topological isomer azupyrene. The non‐alternant topology of azupyrene causes a more localized charge distribution, smaller electronic and optical gaps, and different fluorescence behavior.

The cobalt(I)-catalyzed cyclotrimerization of (un)symmetrical 1,4-disubstituted 1,3-butadiynes is presented. In the case of unsymmetrical 1,3-butadiynes, this reaction can generate eight 1,2,4-substituted and four 1,3,5-substituted isomers. A single 1,2,4-substituted isomer was formed in excellent yields (up to 99%) and exclusive regioselectivities (99:1) when symmetrical or a 1,3-butadiyne with an aryl or alkyl substituent and a trimethylsilyl group were applied. A large number of products accepting a wide variety of functional groups were synthesized.