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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 58: Organic molecules on inorganic substrates: Adsorption and growth III

O 58.1: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 11. März 2026, 10:30–10:45, TRE/PHYS

Probing weak chemical interactions of metal surface atoms with CO-terminated AFM tips identifies molecular adsorption sites — Jalmar Tschakert¹, Qigang Zhong¹, Alexander Sekels¹, Pascal Henkel², Jannis Jung², K. Linus H. Pohl², Hermann A. Wegner³, Doreen Mollenhauer⁴, André Schirmeisen¹, and •Daniel Ebeling¹ — ¹Inst. of Applied Physics, Justus Liebig University Giessen — ²Inst. of Physical Chemistry, Justus Liebig University Giessen — ³Inst. of Organic Chemistry, Justus Liebig University Giessen — ⁴Inst. for Technical and Environmental Chemistry, Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Understanding reaction mechanisms of adsorbed organic molecules is key to neat on-surface synthesis of functional nanomaterials. Low temperature atomic force microscopy has become an invaluable tool for studying on-surface reaction mechanisms as it allows to visualize the chemical structure of the reactants and products. However, directly accessing the molecule-surface interactions that are responsible for the pathway of on-surface reactions is difficult. Here, we measure chemical interactions between CO-terminated tips and coinage metal surface atoms in all spatial directions with picometer resolution. Identifying the small covalent bonding contributions in the background of the dispersion-dominated interaction enables revealing insights into the nature of chemical bond formation with metal surface atoms and a reliable determination of molecular adsorption sites. The latter can serve as a starting point and for a comparison with theoretical studies.

[1] Tschakert et al., Nature Communications 16, 7874 (2025)

Keywords: Low Temperature Atomic Force Microscopy; On-Surface Synthesis; On-Surface Reactions; Catalytic Interactions of Metal Surface Atoms