Physical chemistry of surface-confined metal-organic complexes
DIPC Seminars
- Speaker
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Sebastian Stepanow, Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
- When
-
2013/04/25
14:00 - Place
- Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal, 4 (nearby the Facultad de Quimica), Donostia
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Surfaces and interfaces are of paramount importance in a broad area of science
and technology ranging from heterogeneous catalysis, sensing applications,
bio-interfaces, electronics, solar-energy converters, electrodes in fuel cells
and electrocatalysis. The specific functionalization of surfaces has hence
become an intensive research topic over the recent years. In general,
supramolecular chemistry provides a versatile toolbox for the design and
incorporation of functional units onto well-defined surfaces. Moreover, the
directed self-assembly of organic ligands and metal atoms at surfaces has
attracted great interest, since the adlayers can be designed taking into
account both functionalities of the interface: the adlayer’s constituents as
well as the support itself. This view of the interface as a hybrid material
can bring in new properties that cannot be achieved in the separated systems
creating diverse functions spanning from surface pattering, localized magnetic
moments, selective receptor sites, catalytic reaction centers and the general
control of the interface electronic structure.
The self-assembly of metal complexes at surfaces results in unique
coordination numbers and geometries, where the physicochemical properties are
to a great extend yet unexplored. Here, we report examples of recent
investigations of long-range ordered metal-organic networks and their
electronic properties studied by scanning tunneling microscopy, x-ray
absorption spectroscopy and density functional theory based calculations. The
results provide detailed insight into the local properties of the metal
centers and organic ligands, as well as their coupling with the environment.
The local inter-adsorbate bonding and hybridization of the constituents with
the underlying surface leads to a particular hybrid electronic structure of
the complexes that can be exploited to design novel functional materials.