Adsorption behavior of Lander molecules on Cu(110) studied by scanning tunneling microscopy

The adsorption of a large organic molecule, named Lander, has been studied on a Cu(110) substrate by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). At low temperatures three different conformations of the molecule are observed on the flat surface terraces. At room temperature the Lander molecules are highly mobile and anchor preferentially to step edges. There the molecules cause a rearrangement of the Cu step atoms leading to the formation of Cu nanostructures that are adapted to the dimension of the molecule, as revealed directly by STM manipulation experiments. Upon annealing to 500 K the molecules order at higher coverages partially into small domains. In all cases the exact adsorption conformation of the molecules was identified through an interplay with elastic scattering quantum chemistry calculations.