Formation of Highly-Ordered Semiconducting Anthracene Monolayer Rigidly Connected to Insulating Alkanethiolate Thin Film

The formation and molecular structure of a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of anthracene-substituted alkanethiol on Au(111) have been investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy and infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy. A clean and well-ordered SAM composed of densely packed "standing-up" molecules is formed by a wet-chemical process in air, followed by thermal annealing in vacuum. In the SAM, anthracene moieties are arranged in a bulklike in-plane herringbone structure and keep their crystalline ordering above room temperature, which is in contrast to the less ordering in Au nanoclusters ligated by the anthracene-alkanethiolates. In addition, hexagonal arrangement of anthracene dimer is found on the surface of the SAM. These structures remain after annealing at 400 K. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy performed on the surface shows an energy gap of similar to 3.6 eV, similar to the band gap of bulk anthracene. The above results demonstrate that the highly ordered semiconducting anthracene monolayer is successfully formed on the insulating alkanethiolate thin film and has high thermal stability due to a strong chemical bonding across the interface.