Publications

When do hydrocarbons dewet metal surfaces? The case of coronene on Cu(111)

Wang, Chen S.; Thurmer, Konrad T.; Skeen, Scott; Bartelt, Norman C.

We have used scanning tunneling microscopy and density functional theory calculations to study molecular layers of coronene on Cu(111). The structure and stability of these layers is determined by the balance between coronene-substrate and coronene-coronene interactions. Here, we characterize this balance by measuring the maximum coverage before coronene dewets the substrate to form three-dimensional islands. We find that coronene molecules lie parallel to the substrate at the maximum coverage, in contrast to previous observations of tilted coronene on metal surfaces. We attribute this previously reported tilt to a metastability caused by an activation barrier to nucleate three-dimensional islands.