Examples of molecular self-assembly at surfaces

TL;DR

This paper reviews various examples of molecular self-assembly at surfaces, emphasizing the physical mechanisms and factors like geometry and energy scales that influence pattern formation in experiments.

Contribution

It provides a unified physical understanding of diverse self-assembly systems at surfaces, highlighting simple factors that govern pattern formation.

Findings

Intermolecular and molecule-surface forces drive self-assembly.

Similar physical principles can describe apparently different systems.

Geometry and energy scales are key to understanding patterns.

Abstract

The self-assembly of molecules at surfaces can be caused by a range of physical mechanisms. Assembly can be driven by intermolecular forces, or molecule-surface forces, or both; it can result in structures that are in equilibrium or that are kinetically trapped. Here we review examples of self-assembly at surfaces that have been studied within the User program of the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, focusing on a physical understanding of what causes patterns seen in experiment. Some apparently disparate systems can be described in similar physical terms, indicating that simple factors -- such as the geometry and energy scale of intermolecular binding -- are key to understanding the self-assembly of those systems.