Surface Structures and Thermal Desorption Behaviors of Cyclopentanethiol Self-Assembled Monolayers on Au(111)

Abstract

The surface structures, adsorption conditions, and thermal desorption behaviors of cyclopentanethiol (CPT) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on Au(111) were investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS). STM imaging revealed that although the adsorption of CPT on Au(111) at room temperature generates disordered SAMs, CPT molecules at 50 degrees C formed well-ordered SAMs with a (2 root 3 x root 5)R41 degrees packing structure. XPS measurements showed that CPT SAMs at room temperature were formed via chemical reactions between the sulfur atoms and gold surfaces. TDS measurements showed two dominant TD peaks for the decomposed fragments (C5H9+, m/e = 69) generated via C-S bond cleavage and the parent molecular species (C5H9SH+, m/e = 102) derived from a recombination of the chemisorbed thiolates and hydrogen atoms near 440 K. Interestingly, dimerization of sulfur atoms in n-alkanethiol SAMs usually occurs during thermal desorption and the same reaction did not happen for CPT SAMs, which may be due to the steric hindrance of cyclic rings of the CPT molecules. In this study, we demonstrated that the alicyclic ring of organic thiols strongly affected the surface structure and thermal desorption behavior of SAMs, thus providing a good method for controlling chemical and physical properties of organic thiol SAMs.