Poirier GE, Pylant ED
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA.
Science. 1996 May 24;272(5265):1145-8. doi: 10.1126/science.272.5265.1145.
The self-assembly mechanism of alkanethiol monolayers on the (111) surface of gold was discovered with the use of an ultrahigh-vacuum scanning tunneling microscope. Monolayer formation follows a two-step process that begins with condensation of low-density crystalline islands, characterized by surface-aligned molecular axes, from a lower density lattice-gas phase. At saturation coverage of this phase, the monolayer undergoes a phase transition to a denser phase by realignment of the molecular axes with the surface normal. These studies reveal the important role of molecule-substrate and molecule-molecule interactions in the self-assembly of these technologically important material systems.
利用超高真空扫描隧道显微镜发现了硫醇单层在金（111）表面的自组装机制。单层形成遵循两步过程，首先是从低密度晶格气相中凝聚出低密度晶体岛，其特征是分子轴与表面对齐。在该相的饱和覆盖度下，单层通过分子轴与表面法线重新排列而经历相变，转变为更致密的相。这些研究揭示了分子-底物和分子-分子相互作用在这些具有重要技术意义的材料系统自组装中的重要作用。
