Insights into the adsorption behavior of a prototype functional molecule

Michael Lepper presents a detailed room temperature scanning tunneling microscopy study of Nickel-tetraphenyltetrabenzoporphyrin on Cu(111), a prototype system for the fabrication of functional molecular architectures. The peculiar adsorption behavior, in particular the observation of three different coexisting supramolecular arrangements and the identification of two different intramolecular conformations within one arrangement, yield valuable insights into the specific molecular interactions and the self-assembly process in general.