Descripción del proyecto
Control a nivel atómico de los enlaces covalentes en el autoensamblaje supramolecular sobre sustratos
Guiar el autoensamblaje supramolecular para producir materiales innovadores con funcionalidades a medida es un ámbito en el que se investiga intensamente y que tiene posibles aplicaciones en dispositivos avanzados. Sin embargo, hasta hoy en día, el autoensamblaje se ha basado principalmente en interacciones no covalentes. Estos enlaces relativamente débiles limitan la estabilidad de los materiales y, potencialmente, su funcionalidad. Los últimos avances han dado lugar a las primeras redes orgánicas de enlace covalente sintetizadas directamente sobre superficies de sustratos en condiciones de vacío ultraalto. En el proyecto SURFINK, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, se hará avanzar este prometedor campo incipiente mejorando el control de la estructura atómica en tres tipos de materiales avanzados: nanocintas de grafeno, estructuras porosas y redes donante-aceptor. El equipo del proyecto también desarrollará un conjunto de herramientas de caracterización centradas en microscopios de sonda de barrido.
Objetivo
With the advent of self-assembly, increasingly high hopes are being placed on supramolecular materials as future active components of a variety of devices. The main challenge remains the design and assembly of supramolecular structures with emerging functionalities tailored according to our needs. In this respect, the extensive research over the last decades has led to impressive progress in the self-assembly of molecular structures. However, self-assembly typically relies on non-covalent interactions, which are relatively weak and limit the structure’s stability and often even their functionality. Only recently the first covalently bonded organic networks were synthesized directly on substrate surfaces under ultra-high-vacuum, whose structure could be defined by appropriate design of the molecular precursors. The potential of this approach was immediately recognized and has attracted great attention. However, the field is still in its infancy, and the aim of this project is to lift this new concept to higher levels of sophistication reaching real functionality.
For optimum tunability of the material’s properties, its structure must be controlled to the atomic level and allow great levels of complexity and perfection. Complexity can be reached e.g. with hybrid structures combining different types of precursors. In this project, this hardly explored approach will be applied to three families of materials of utmost timeliness and relevance: graphene nanoribbons, porous frameworks, and donor-acceptor networks. Along the pursuit of these objectives, side challenges that will be addressed are the extension of our currently available chemistry-on-surfaces toolbox by identification of new reactions, optimized reaction conditions, surfaces, and ultimately their combination strategies. A battery of tools, with special emphasis on scanning probe microscopies, will be used to visualize and characterize the reactions and physical-chemical properties of the resulting materials.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
20018 Donostia San Sebastian
España