Self-assembly of functional molecules at surfaces

This work is aimed at establishing a correlation between molecule-substrate and molecule-molecule interactions in view of the future implementation of nano-electronic devices based on functional molecules. In particular, we studied the self-assembly behaviour of organic thiols functionalized molecules holding potential to act as switches on solid substrates. We focused on the isomerization of azobenzene based Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs) on gold substrates. A fine tuning of interchain interactions within the SAM made it possible to obtain high yield of isomerization. We also devised a new method to isolate individual functional molecules in a host SAM. In the final chapter we present our studies on the self-assembly properties of grid-like supramolecular architectures. Sub-molecularly resolved Scanning Tunneling Microscopy studies offered direct insights into structural and dynamic properties of the monolayers