Synthesis of a Naphthodiazaborinine and Its Verification by Planarization with Atomic Force Microscopy.

Majzik, Zsolt; Cuenca, Ana B; Pavliček, Niko; Miralles, Núria; Meyer, Gerhard; Gross, Leo; Fernández, Elena · ACS Nano · 2016

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

Aiming to study new motifs, potentially active as functional materials, we performed the synthesis of a naphthodiazaborinine (the BN isostere of the phenalenyl anion) that is bonded to a hindered di-ortho-substituted aryl system (9-anthracene). We used atomic force microscopy (AFM) and succeeded in both the verification of the original nonplanar structure of the molecule and the planarization of the skeleton by removing H atoms that cause steric hindrance. This study demonstrated that planarization by atomic manipulation is a possible route for extending molecular identification by AFM to nonplanar molecular systems that are difficult to probe with AFM directly.