Communication: Scanning tunneling microscopy study of the reaction of octanethiolate self-assembled monolayers with atomic chlorine

摘要

Scanning tunneling microscopy was used to investigate the reaction of octanethiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) with atomic chlorine. We have found that exposing a SAM to low fluxes of radical Cl results primarily in the formation of new defects in areas with close-packed alkanethiolates, but has little to no effect on the domain boundaries of the SAM. Dosing high quantities of atomic chlorine results in the near-complete loss of surface order at room temperature, but not the complete removal of the thiolate monolayer. These observations are in stark contrast to the results of previous measurements of the reaction of atomic hydrogen with alkanethiolate SAMs.