Crystallization of molecular layers produced under confinement onto a surface

It is well known that molecules confined very close to a surface arrange into molecular layers. Because solid-liquid interfaces are ubiquitous in the chemical, biological and physical sciences, it is crucial to develop methods to easily access molecular layers and exploit their distinct properties by producing molecular layered crystals. Here we report a method based on crystallization in ultra-thin puddles enabled by gas blowing, which allows to produce molecular layered crystals with thickness down to the monolayer onto a surface, making them directly accessible for characterization and further processing. By selecting four molecules with different types of polymorphs, we observed exclusive crystallization of polymorphs with Van der Waals interlayer interactions, which have not been observed with traditional confinement methods. In conclusion, the gas blowing approach unveils the opportunity to perform materials chemistry under confinement onto a surface, enabling the formation of distinct crystals with selected polymorphism.

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Subject (DDC)

500 - Naturwissenschaften

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ISBN

ISSN

2041-1723

Language

English

Created during FHNW affiliation

No

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Publication status

Published

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Peer review of the complete publication

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Gold

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Citation

Tong, J., de Bruyn, N., Alieva, A., Legge, Elizabeth. J., Boyes, M., Song, X., Walisinghe, A. J., Pollard, A. J., Anderson, M. W., Vetter, T., Melle-Franco, M., & Casiraghi, C. (2024). Crystallization of molecular layers produced under confinement onto a surface. Nature Communications, 15, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45900-0

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