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

新技术的发展关键取决于以令人兴奋的新方式控制材料性能的能力。小型化和效率的现代趋势，以及（例如）对清洁能源发电和高效能源存储的新兴社会需求，揭示了对新材料的需求，这些新材料可以使下一代技术具有更高的性能。满足这种小型设备需求的一个有前途的解决方案是转向“自下而上”的视角，将分子构建块组装成功能性纳米结构材料。这种方法的一个显着优点是可以获得的最小特征尺寸主要取决于构建块的尺寸。推进这些自下而上的方法需要更好地理解驱动分子成分组织的相互作用，这属于超分子化学和最近的“表面反应”领域。 扫描隧道显微镜 (STM) 可以获取单个分子的图像，使其成为研究分子组织和反应的宝贵工具。教授将 STM 与其他表面分析工具相结合。 Rosei 和 Santato 对分子相互作用和表面反应获得了重要的见解，特别是最近合成了破纪录的有序和域尺寸的二维聚合物，并表征了真黑素单体之间的相互作用，真黑素是一种有前景的可持续有机电子生物材料。我们建议扩展我们在二维聚合物方面的里程碑式成就，以合成基于多个构建模块的聚合物。第二个方向，我们将研究金属离子对真黑素聚合和超分子特征的影响，以获得对其生物学作用的关键见解，并促进其发展为可持续能源存储设备。 该提案的动机是获得执行这些时间敏感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。升级后的控制器除了提供更好的性能和可编程性之外，还可以对我们合成的独特二维聚合物的电子特性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速率，这需要具有集成通量监控功能的高质量蒸发器。这些升级将使我们能够在未来几年充分利用这个强大且专业的 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.