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Paper

J. Mater. Chem., 2010, 20, 187 - 194, DOI: 10.1039/b916895h


Deposition of intact tetrairon(III) single molecule magnet monolayers on gold: an STM, XPS, and ToF-SIMS investigation

Francesco Pineider, Matteo Mannini, Chiara Danieli, Lidia Armelao, Federica M. Piras, Agnese Magnani, Andrea Cornia and Roberta Sessoli


The ability of a tetranuclear iron(III) single-molecule magnet functionalized with thioacetyl-terminated ligands to form monolayers on gold has been investigated by a multitechnique approach based on STM, XPS and ToF-SIMS. We discuss in detail several aspects, which are relevant to the reported observation of a memory effect on the monolayer prepared from dichloromethane (Mannini et al., Nat. Mater., 2009, 8, 194). In particular we show that the adsorbate comprises intact surface-bound Fe4 clusters as opposed to microcrystals or multilayers. The influence of the solvent used for the self-assembly process on the morphology, composition and structure of the adsorbate is also studied for four different solvents (dichloromethane, n-hexane, toluene, 1,4-dioxane).

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