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Tuning electronic surface properties by molecular patterning (SURFPRO)
Start date: Jan 1, 2013, End date: Dec 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

"Inspired by the possibility to create an artificial electronic band structure through the interplay of a molecular nanoporous network with the surface state electrons of a metallic substrate (recently reported by us), the utilization of this new concept for controlling the electronic surface properties of a material as well as establishing understanding of the underlying principles for the observed behavior is the overall aim of this project. The modification of the electronic surface properties also affects the material properties in general, such as conductivity, surface catalysis properties and reflectivity. Thus, the proposed concept has great potential for materials research and will ultimately result in the development of new materials with adjustable electronic properties. Such materials will find applications in e. g. (nano)electronic devices or sensors.The plan is to make use of supramolecular self-assembly and such, to fabricate nanoporous networks from specially designed molecular building blocks on either metallic substrates having a surface state or graphene. Since both the metallic substrates and graphene feature a quasi free 2D electron gas it is assumed that quantum confinement will appear in the pores of the network leading to confined states. Due to the coupling of these confined states, an artificial electronic band structure is expected to form. Moreover, in the case of graphene the opening of a band gap is expected to occur which is a prerequisite for the implementation of graphene in electronic devices.With the help of scanning tunneling microscopy and photoelectron spectroscopy measurements the confinement properties of different nanoporous networks will be studied with respect to pore to pore distance, pore diameter, effect of the interplay between intermolecular and molecule substrate interactions, effect of trapping guest molecules in the pores and coupling strength between graphene and its support layer."
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