An atomic force microscope study of vanadium-benzene sandwich clusters soft-landed on self-assembled monolayers.

Multiple-decker vanadium-benzene sandwich clusters Vn(benzene)n+1 produced by a laser-vaporization synthesis method were soft-landed onto self-assembled monolayers of alkanethiol (C18H-SAM) and fluorinated alkanethiol (C10F-SAM) at 200 K. Noncontact atomic force microscopy has been used to examine the resulting adsorption states of the clusters landed on the SAMs at room temperature. For each SAM substrate, the aggregates of the deposited clusters were observed at the vacancy islands and near the steps of the SAM surface. The result indicates that, at room temperature, the clusters landed on the SAM substrate thermally diffuse on the surface to form columnar-shape islands around the defect sites of the SAM surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]