Formation of Ordered Coronene Clusters in Template Utilizing the Structural Transformation of Hexaphenylbenzene Derivative Networks on Graphite Surface.

In the present work, we reported the fabrication of regular coronene (COR) clusters on surfaces in ambient conditions in the two-dimensional network formed by hexaphenylbenzene derivatives (HPB) via structural transformation. HPB could form stable snowflake network structure on HOPG surface at air-solid interface. When COR molecules were introduced into the system, the HPB snowflake network could transform to honeycomb structures, and the COR heptamers were subsequently aggregated and entrapped into the cavity. Scanning tunneling microscopic (STM) was employed here to monitor the assembly behavior of both HPB and HPB/COR at a sub-molecule scale level and density functional theory (DFT) calculations were utilized to reveal that the structural transformation and the entrapment are the energetically favorable. The pores formed from HPB might also give a clue to immobilizing some functional molecule clusters, like coronene, to fabricate their ordered monolayer in ambient conditions, so as to obtain complex supramolecular surface structures.