Adsorption and electron-induced dissociation of ethanethiol on Au(111)

Fangsen Li; Lin Tang; Jianzhi Gao; Wancheng Zhou; Quanmin Guo

doi:10.1021/la301779m

Adsorption and electron-induced dissociation of ethanethiol on Au(111)

Langmuir. 2012 Jul 31;28(30):11115-20. doi: 10.1021/la301779m. Epub 2012 Jul 18.

Authors

Fangsen Li¹, Lin Tang, Jianzhi Gao, Wancheng Zhou, Quanmin Guo

Affiliation

¹ State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.

PMID: 22780552
DOI: 10.1021/la301779m

Abstract

Dissociation of ethanethiol and the formation of Au-adatom-diethylthiolate rows on the Au(111) surface were investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) at low temperature. Ethanethiol molecules physisorb on Au(111) at 120 K by sequentially occupation of the elbow site, the fcc domain before covering the whole surface with a semiliquid layer without long-range order. Scanning the physisorbed layer with a sample bias higher than +1.2 V leads to dissociation via cleaving the H-S bond. One of the dissociation products, ethylthiolate, forms a double-row structure with the rows aligned in one of the [112(-)] directions. These double rows arise from the Au-adatom-dithiolate species: CH(3)CH(2)S-Au-SCH(2)CH(3).