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Wang G, Rühling A, Amirjalayer S, et al. Ballbot-type motion of N-heterocyclic carbenes on gold surfaces. Nat Chem. 2016;9(2):152-156doi: 10.1038/nchem.2622.
Wang, G., Rühling, A., Amirjalayer, S., Knor, M., Ernst, J. B., Richter, C., Gao, H. J., Timmer, A., Gao, H. Y., Doltsinis, N. L., Glorius, F., & Fuchs, H. (2017). Ballbot-type motion of N-heterocyclic carbenes on gold surfaces. Nature chemistry, 9(2), 152-156. https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2622
Wang, Gaoqiang, et al. "Ballbot-type motion of N-heterocyclic carbenes on gold surfaces." Nature chemistry vol. 9,2 (2017): 152-156. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2622
Wang G, Rühling A, Amirjalayer S, Knor M, Ernst JB, Richter C, Gao HJ, Timmer A, Gao HY, Doltsinis NL, Glorius F, Fuchs H. Ballbot-type motion of N-heterocyclic carbenes on gold surfaces. Nat Chem. 2017 Feb;9(2):152-156. doi: 10.1038/nchem.2622. Epub 2016 Oct 03. PMID: 28282049.
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Nat Chem. 2017 Feb;9(2):152-156. doi: 10.1038/nchem.2622. Epub 2016 Oct 03.

Ballbot-type motion of N-heterocyclic carbenes on gold surfaces.

Nature chemistry

Gaoqiang Wang, Andreas Rühling, Saeed Amirjalayer, Marek Knor, Johannes Bruno Ernst, Christian Richter, Hong-Jun Gao, Alexander Timmer, Hong-Ying Gao, Nikos L Doltsinis, Frank Glorius, Harald Fuchs

Affiliations

  1. Physikalisches Institut, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Wilhelm-Klemm-Straße 10, 48149 Münster, Germany.
  2. Center for Nanotechnology, Heisenbergstraße 11, 48149 Münster, Germany.
  3. Institute of Physics &University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 603, Beijing 100190, China.
  4. Organisch-Chemisches Institut, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Corrensstrasse 40, 48149 Münster, Germany.
  5. Center for Multiscale Theory and Computation, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Wilhelm-Klemm-Straße 10, 48149 Münster, Germany.
  6. Institut für Festkörpertheorie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Wilhelm-Klemm-Straße 10, 48149 Münster, Germany.

PMID: 28282049 DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2622

Abstract

Recently, N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) were introduced as alternative anchors for surface modifications and so offered many attractive features, which might render them superior to thiol-based systems. However, little effort has been made to investigate the self-organization process of NHCs on surfaces, an important aspect for the formation of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), which requires molecular mobility. Based on investigations with scanning tunnelling microscopy and first-principles calculations, we provide an understanding of the microscopic mechanism behind the high mobility observed for NHCs. These NHCs extract a gold atom from the surface, which leads to the formation of an NHC-gold adatom complex that displays a high surface mobility by a ballbot-type motion. Together with their high desorption barrier this enables the formation of ordered and strongly bound SAMs. In addition, this mechanism allows a complementary surface-assisted synthesis of dimeric and hitherto unknown trimeric NHC gold complexes on the surface.

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