Critical and Urgent Upgrade for Ultra High Vacuum Scanning Probe Microscopy Facility

新技术的发展关键取决于以新的和令人兴奋的方式控制材料性能的能力。小型化和能效的现代趋势，以及(例如)对清洁能源生产和高效能源储存的新的社会需求，揭示了对能够使下一代技术具有更高性能的新材料的需求。对于这种对更小设备的需求，一个有希望的解决方案是转向“自下而上”的观点，即将分子构建块组装成功能纳米结构材料。这种方法的一个显著优点是，可以获得的最小特征大小主要取决于构建块的大小。推进这些自下而上的方法需要更好地理解推动分子组分组织的相互作用，这属于超分子化学领域，最近还属于“表面反应”领域。 扫描隧道显微镜(STM)可以获得单个分子的图像，使其成为研究分子组织和反应的宝贵工具。结合扫描隧道显微镜和其他表面分析工具，教授。Rosei和Sanatts在分子相互作用和表面反应方面获得了重要的见解，特别是最近合成的打破记录的有序和微区大小的2D聚合物，并表征了真黑素单体之间的相互作用，eumelanin是一种有望用于可持续有机电子的生物材料。我们建议在我们在2D聚合物方面取得的里程碑式成就的基础上，合成基于多个构建基块的聚合物。在第二个方向上，我们将研究金属离子对真黑素聚合和超分子特性的影响，以获得对其生物学作用的关键见解，并推动其发展成为可持续的储能装置。 这项提议的动机是获得开展这些时间敏感型项目所必需的关键工具。我们迫切需要为我们研究基础设施中的关键系统更换过时的STM控制器。升级的控制器除了提供更好的性能和可编程性外，还将使我们能够对我们合成的独特2D聚合物的电子性质进行有价值的光谱测量。此外，我们的实验需要精确控制表面分子沉积的速度，这就需要一个集成流量监控的高质量蒸发器。这些升级将使我们能够在未来几年充分利用这一强大而专业的STM系统。

The development of new technologies depends critically on the ability to control materials properties in new and exciting ways. Modern trends towards miniaturization and efficiency, as well as (for example) emerging societal demands for clean energy generation and efficient energy storage, have revealed the need for new materials that can enable next-generation technologies with improved performance. A promising solution to this demand for smaller devices is to shift to a “bottom-up” perspective, where molecular building blocks are assembled into functional nanostructured materials. A significant advantage of this approach is that the smallest feature size that can be obtained depends mainly on the size of the building blocks. Advancing these bottom-up methods requires an improved understanding of the interactions driving the organization of the molecular components, which falls within the field of supramolecular chemistry and more recently, “on-surface reactions”. The scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) can acquire images of individual molecules, making it an invaluable tool to investigate molecular organization and reaction. Combining STM with other surface analysis tools, Profs. Rosei and Santato have obtained essential insights into molecular interactions and on-surface reactions, and in particular recently synthesized 2D polymers of record-breaking order and domain size and characterized the interactions between monomers of eumelanin, a promising bio-material for sustainable organic electronics. We propose to extend on our milestone achievement in 2D polymers to synthesize polymers based on multiple building blocks. In a second direction, we will study the influence of metal ions on polymerization and supramolecular features of eumelanin to obtain key insights into its biological role and promote its development into sustainable energy storage devices. The motivation for this proposal is to acquire key instruments that are essential to carry out these time-sensitive projects. We urgently require a replacement for the obsolete STM controller for a crucial system in our research infrastructure. The upgraded controller would enable valuable spectroscopic measurements of the electronic properties of the unique 2D polymers we synthesize, besides offering better performance and programmability. In addition, our experiments require precise control over the rate of molecular deposition on the surface, which necessitates a high-quality evaporator with integrated flux monitoring. These upgrades will enable us to take full advantage of this powerful and specialized STM system in the years to come.