Structure and function tailoring of low-dimensional metal/organic architectures: a molecular-level insight

Surface-supported low-dimensional architectures combining organic linkers and ligands with suitable metal centers have gained increasing relevance due their functional flexibility, the high degree of structural control, and the potential for a variety of applications, such as single-site catalysis, chemical sensing and low-dimensional magnetism. Surface science studies under controlled conditions offer a rich playground to assess the interplay of structure and functional properties, including the role of substrate-mediated effects, molecular conformation and competing interfacial interactions. In my talk, I will discuss different strategies that can be used to prepare regular arrays of transition metal 'single sites' on model solid surfaces, by exploiting spontaneous molecular organization, metal-directed assembly and on-surface reactions to achieve unprecedented structural control. Moreover, I will present the state-of-the-art methodology that is available for gaining (sub)molecular-level insight into the geometric and electronic properties of the resulting systems, which in turn is required to enable a fundamental understanding of molecular-scale phenomena and the fine-tuning of functional properties. The results presented bode promise for the future engineering of regular bimetallic arrays with atomic precision and the design of low-dimensional systems of ever increasing sophistication.  

With the support of FAR 2021 Mobility Actions and in collaboration with MaX - Materials design at the Exascale (European Union’s Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation program - under grant agreement no. 824143)