Controlled Manipulation of Magic Number Gold-Fullerene Clusters Using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Dogan Kaya; Jianzhi Gao; Mahroo Rokni Fard; Richard E Palmer; Quanmin Guo

doi:10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b01519

Controlled Manipulation of Magic Number Gold-Fullerene Clusters Using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Langmuir. 2018 Jul 17;34(28):8388-8392. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b01519. Epub 2018 Jul 5.

Authors

Dogan Kaya^{1

2}, Jianzhi Gao³, Mahroo Rokni Fard¹, Richard E Palmer⁴, Quanmin Guo¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics and Astronomy , University of Birmingham , Edgbaston , Birmingham B15 2TT , U.K.
² Department of Electronics and Automation, Vocational School of Adana , Cukurova University , 01160 Cukurova , Adana , Turkey.
³ School of Physics and Information Technology , Shaanxi Normal University , Xi'an 710119 , China.
⁴ College of Engineering , Swansea University , Bay Campus , Fabian Way, Swansea SA1 8EN , U.K.

PMID: 29924615
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b01519

Abstract

We report controlled manipulation of magic number gold-fullerene clusters, (C₆₀) _m-(Au) _n, on a Au(111) substrate at 110 K using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Each cluster consists of a two-dimensional gold island of nAu atoms confined by a frame of mC₆₀ molecules. Using STM, C₆₀ molecules are extracted from the molecular frame one at a time. The extraction is conducted by driving the STM tip into the cluster, leading to one of the molecules being squeezed out of the frame. Unlike at room temperature, the extracted molecules do not move away from the cluster because of the lack of thermal energy at 110 K; they are found to be attached to the outside of the frame. Reversible manipulation is also possible by pushing an extracted molecule back into the frame. This reversible manipulation is possible only for molecules from the edge of the cluster.