Abstract:

The combination of electrospray ionization with ion beam deposition in ultra-high vacuum has opened new opportunities to research non-sublimable molecules on solid surfaces in recent years. An Fe(II) [2 × 2] grid complex was deposited on Ag(111) and investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. Low landing energies (< 3 eV z^-1) resulted in clusters and single structures with potentially intact coordination bonds. Higher landing energies (> 3 eV z^-1) led to coordination bond cleavage and a rich variety of self-assembled surface networks formed spontaneously by the grid fragments. Applying established on-surface synthesis methodology employing the constituents of these networks (ligands and Fe atoms) reproduced only a part of them. It is thus proposed that electrospray ion beam deposition is a different route to on-surface coordination network synthesis.

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