Spectroscopic Fingerprints of sp1 Hybridized C in Surface-Grown Molecular Assemblies

The advent of on-surface chemistry and molecular self-assembly opened the way to the realization of organic materials whose lack of stability in vacuo would otherwise forbid their synthesis. Recently the on-surface coupling of the precursors has also been used to synthesize adsorbed organic systems with chemically vulnerable linear carbon chains with sp 1 hybridization [1]. A notable advantage of on-surface synthesis is that the full realm of the experimental and theoretical surface science toolbox is available for the investigation. While the method of choice for surface-supported architectures is the scanning tunneling microscope and ultimate resolution is achieved by low-T non-contact atomic force microscopy, electron core-level spectroscopy can provide an even more local probe of the electronic properties of the material. In particular, polarized near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy is here suggested to discriminate sp 1 /sp 2 character in the structures. We present an ab initio study of the polarized NEXAFS spectrum of model and real sp 1 /sp 2 materials. Calculations are performed within density functional theory with plane waves and pseudopotentials, and spectra are computed by core-excited C potentials as validated by previous studies [2,3]. We evaluate the dichroism in the spectrum for ideal carbynes and highlight the main differences relative to typical sp 2 systems. We then consider a mixed polymer alternating sp 1 C 4 units with sp 2 biphenyl groups, recently synthesized on Au(111) [4], as well as other linear structures and two-dimensional networks, pointing out a spectral line shape specifically due to the the presence of linear C chains [5]. Our study suggests that the measurements of polarized NEXAFS spectra could be used to distinctly fingerprint the presence of sp 1 hybridization in surface-grown C structures. [1] Q. Sun, R. Zhang, J. Qiu, R. Liu, and W. Xu, Adv. Mater. 2018, 30, 1705630 [2] G. Fratesi, V. Lanzilotto, L. Floreano, and G. P. Brivio, J. Phys. Chem. C 2013, 117, 6632 [3] G. Fratesi, V. Lanzilotto, S. Stranges, M. Alagia, G. P. Brivio, and L. Floreano, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2014, 16, 14834 [4] Q. Sun, L. Cai, H. Ma, C. Yuan, and W. Xu, ACS Nano 2016, 10, 7023 [5] G. Fratesi, S. Achilli, N. Manini, G. Onida, A. Baby, A. Ravikumar, A. Ugolotti, G.P. Brivio, A. Milani, and C.S. Casari, Materials 2018, 11, 2556