747. WE-Heraeus-Seminar
“Molecular Functionality at Surfaces: Self‐Assembly, Manipulation, Reactivity and the Role of Decoupling”
The emergence of organic materials in current and future applications like displays, sensors, separation techniques, electronics or in energy storage is driven and fueled by the virtually unlimited synthetic possibilities for tailoring their electronic, chemical, optical and (photo-) catalytic properties. For the performance of organic materials in (key) applications, not only the molecular structure of the organic materials, but also interfaces to inorganic materials play vitally important roles. Fundamental insight into the properties of organic materials confined at these interfaces is gained from studying both individual molecules and molecular structures on surfaces in defined environments by taking full advantage of highly resolving surface-sensitive techniques, foremost scanning probe microscopy. On the one hand, these model environments reduce complexity by reducing the dimensionality due to the usage of flatlands. On the other hand, molecule-surface interactions affect both structure formation and properties of the adsorbed species.
For understanding the interplay of the different interactions, the close collaboration between experimentalists and theoreticians is essential for advancing the field and will be reflected in the seminar. An overarching goal of this seminar is to present and discuss the disparate research trends of supramolecular selfassembly, on-surface synthesis, decoupling and controlled manipulation of single molecules or molecular nanostructures alongside. One mission is to identify similarities, distinguish technical from principal differences and utilize synergies within the field, also to other closely related research fields on organic materials.