Daniel Schwarz, working as a Ph.D. candidate at the Physics of Interfaces and Nanomaterials (PIN) group has won a Poster Award at the Waldbreitbach summerschool entitled "Exciting excitations: From methods to understanding" which has been held in Waldbreitbach, Germany from July 25-29, 2011. The school, the third in a series, was funded by the Collaborative Research Center SFB 616 "Energy Dissipation at Surfaces" (www.sfb616.uni-due.de).
Nucleation and growth in action:
BDA on Cu(100) studied by LEEM
Daniel Schwarz, Raoul van Gastel, Harold J.W. Zandvliet and Bene Poelsema
Physics of Interfaces and Nanomaterial, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente
Introduction:
The self assembly of organic molecules into large supramolecular structures is a promising method for the fabrication of novel nanoscaled structures. Since the choice of organic molecules with different functionality is practically infinite, potential applications of such structures cover a wide range including: molecular electronics, biosensors, materials science or host–guest chemistry. The resulting nanostructures are formed by the moleculesubstrate, the molecule-molecule interaction and simple thermaldynamics. Usually molecules interact through hydrogen bonds which are weak compared to the moleculesubstrate interaction. Understanding the exact nucleation mechanisms of such systems is crucial to effectively applying this form of supramolecular chemistry.
