When do aromatic thiol form ordered monolayer on Au?

What is it about?

It often tacitly assumed that aromatic thiols form well-ordered structures on Au(111) adopting a sqrt(3) x sqrt(3) structure. The paper presents a critical examination of this expectation by state-of-the-art calculations and surface vibrational spectroscopy. It reports that the general statement formulated in the 1st sentence is not be fully justified.

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Why is it important?

For the first time the ordering of aromatic thiols on a Au(111) has been studied by theoretical calculations including lateral interactions between the molecules. As a consequence some earlier assumptions about the structures may have to be corrected. In particular the ordering is not that perfect for molecules with a single aromatic ring.