Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The development of new technologies depends critically on the ability to control materials properties in new and exciting ways. Modern trends towards miniaturization and efficiency, as well as (for example) emerging societal demands for clean energy generation and efficient energy storage, have revealed the need for new materials that can enable next-generation technologies with improved performance. A promising solution to this demand for smaller devices is to shift to a “bottom-up” perspective, where molecular building blocks are assembled into functional nanostructured materials. A significant advantage of this approach is that the smallest feature size that can be obtained depends mainly on the size of the building blocks. Advancing these bottom-up methods requires an improved understanding of the interactions driving the organization of the molecular components, which falls within the field of supramolecular chemistry and more recently, “on-surface reactions”. The scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) can acquire images of individual molecules, making it an invaluable tool to investigate molecular organization and reaction. Combining STM with other surface analysis tools, Profs. Rosei and Santato have obtained essential insights into molecular interactions and on-surface reactions, and in particular recently synthesized 2D polymers of record-breaking order and domain size and characterized the interactions between monomers of eumelanin, a promising bio-material for sustainable organic electronics. We propose to extend on our milestone achievement in 2D polymers to synthesize polymers based on multiple building blocks. In a second direction, we will study the influence of metal ions on polymerization and supramolecular features of eumelanin to obtain key insights into its biological role and promote its development into sustainable energy storage devices. The motivation for this proposal is to acquire key instruments that are essential to carry out these time-sensitive projects. We urgently require a replacement for the obsolete STM controller for a crucial system in our research infrastructure. The upgraded controller would enable valuable spectroscopic measurements of the electronic properties of the unique 2D polymers we synthesize, besides offering better performance and programmability. In addition, our experiments require precise control over the rate of molecular deposition on the surface, which necessitates a high-quality evaporator with integrated flux monitoring. These upgrades will enable us to take full advantage of this powerful and specialized STM system in the years to come.