Supramolecular arrangement of porphyrins and other molecules has great potential in the fields of molecular information storage and sensing due to their ease of deposition and good chemical and thermal stabilities. In particular, porphyrins of relatively large molecular weights can be applied in thermal deposition while tetrapyrrole molecules have had an extensive synthetic chemistry developed, which enables synthesis of complex derivatives. In this work, we present complementary examples of porphyrin nanoarchitectonics. Fabrication of binary molecular monolayers using two different porphyrin molecules tetrakis(3,5-di-t-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)porphyrin and tetrakis(4-pyridyl)porphyrin by deposition in ultrahigh vacuum is demonstrated. This leads to two unusual heteromolecular monolayer structures were observed with one exhibiting good separation of molecules within the monolayer. Also, a synthetic nanoarchitectonic approach was used to prepare self-assembled molecular nanowires at a mica substrate. The nanowires could be observed growing using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and the network structures of the nanowires can be influenced by manipulation using the AFM probe tip. Formation of molecular monolayers with chromophores positioned remote from the substrate surface will also be discussed.  Figure 1  . (Left) Inhomogeneous molecular monolayer of meso-tetrakis(4-pyridyl)porphyrin. (Centre) Self-assembled nanowires of amphiphilic porphyrin trimer. (Right) Model of the structure of the nanowires.

Controlling porphyrin nanoarchitectures at solid interfaces

247th National Meeting (2014)

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