On-surface aryl–aryl coupling via selective C–H activation

Abstract

Through the interplay of high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging/manipulation and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we have demonstrated that an unprecedented selective aryl-aryl coupling via direct C-H bond activation can be successfully achieved on Cu(110). These findings present a simple and generalized route for preparing low dimensional carbon nanomaterials.

Self-assembly and coverage dependent thermally induced conformational changes of Ni(ii)-meso-tetrakis (4-tert-butylphenyl) benzoporphyrin on Cu(111)

“…50,51 Compared to these reports, the required temperature for the reaction in the present case is comparably low (only B400 K), which is attributed to the catalytic role of the Cu substrate. 52,53 It is important to note that the annealing temperature of about 400 K, which is necessary to initiate the dehydrogenation reaction on Cu(111), is much lower than the temperature of the Knudsen cell used to thermally evaporate the molecules onto the surface (about 690 K), which again underlines the catalytic activity of the substrate.…”

Controllable Scission and Seamless Stitching of Metal–Organic Clusters by STM Manipulation

“…[20] Not limited to single molecules,S TM manipulations have also been extended to larger molecular structural motifs with great progress in the following aspects:1 )moving clusters, [21] chains, [22][23][24][25] and patches; [26] 2) dissociating dimers, clusters,a nd complexes by breaking hydrogen bonds, [27] coordination bonds, [28][29][30] and carbon-metal bonds, [31] respectively;3)constructing structural motifs by forming new bonds ranging from hydrogen bonds, [32] coordination bonds, [30,33] to robust covalent bonds; [20,34,35] and 4) probing different hierarchical interactions [36] and identifying hydrogen-bonding configurations [27] and covalent bonding sites. [37] Most of the previous studies mentioned above mainly exhibited either the dissociation or construction of various structural motifs. However,t ot he best of our knowledge,t he reversible switching of complicated structural motifs by controllable breakage and re-formation of certain bonds through STM manipulations has not been reported to date.Itistherefore of great interest to explore the feasibility of utilizing STM manipulations to achieve controllable scission and precise stitching of complicated structural motifs in ac omparatively facile manner, which may open anew avenue for the artificial fabrication of desired surface nanostructures with more complexity.…”

On‐Surface Formation of Cumulene by Dehalogenative Homocoupling of Alkenyl gem‐Dibromides

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] In general, most of the on-surface reactions follow pathways different from their counterparts in solution because of the effects of the surface: the reactions are confined in two dimensions and the possible catalytic surface activity. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Consequently, unexpected reactions have been surprisingly discovered in on-surface synthesis experiments, [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] and thus, this strategy has opened up a way for the fabrication of a plethora of novel surface nanostructures which may be hardly obtained by traditional solution methods. Among others, the atomically precise synthesis of carbon nanostructures such as graphene nanoribbons [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] and other hydrocarbons like alkanes, dienes and diynes has become a hot topic within the field of onsurface synthesis.…”