Chiral morphologies and interfacial electronic structure of naphtho[2,3-a]pyrene on Au(111)

The adsorption of the two-dimensionally chiral naphtho[2,3-a]pyrene molecule has been studied on Au(111). Both structural and electronic properties of the naphtho[2,3-a]pyrene (NP)/Au(111) interface have been measured. Ultraviolet and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy have been employed to measure the energies of the molecular orbitals of the NP film with respect to the gold Fermi level. A Schottky junction with a large interface dipole (0.99 eV) is formed between Au(111) and NP. Temperature-programmed desorption was used to determine that adsorbed NP has a binding energy of 102.2 kJ/mol. Chiral domains have been observed with scanning tunneling microscopy due to the spontaneous phase separation of the 2-D enantiomers. Two distinct structural polymorphs have been observed, one of which has homochiral paired molecular rows. Models of the 2D structure are proposed that are in excellent agreement with experimental measurements.