Besides being interested in graphene, scientists investigate other big, flat carbon scaffolds, searching for new electronic and magnetic properties. A team based mainly at Shenzhen University and Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, devised ways to synthesize these molecular behemoths (structure shown below) out of hundreds of carbon atoms, and now they’re working on ways to “see” what they made using advanced microscopy techniques.
In this case, they used electrospray ionization coupled with scanning tunneling microscopy. Because this molecule was constructed in solution, the electrospray technique allows the researchers to get the molecules free of solvent and lay them safely on a metal surface. Then, in scanning tunneling microscopy, the researchers create images of the molecules, revealing features smaller than a nanometer.
Credit: Feng Su, Mianling Huang, Minjian Liao, Zhitao Sun, Heng Wang, Xiujun Yu, Zhi Chen, Hang Li, Tao Wang, and Xiaopeng Li. Read the paper in ACS Nano.
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