Flattening helices while keeping the handedness: On-surface cyclodehydrogenation of bishelicene enantiomers leads stereospecifically to (M,M) and (P,P) chiral planar polyaromatic hydrocarbons. This is followed by their homochiral aggregation into a 2D conglomerate. Thermally induced cyclodehydrogenation proceeds stereospecifically to chiral, planar coronocoronene. Such a reaction is a special example of topochemistry in which enantiospecific conversion is supported by the alignment of the reactant by the surface.

• Keywords
• chirality, helicenes, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, scanning tunneling microscopy, surface chemistry,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

Engineering low-band-gap π-conjugated polymers is a growing area in basic and applied research. The main synthetic challenge lies in the solubility of the starting materials, which precludes advancements in the field. Here, we report an on-surface synthesis protocol to overcome such difficulties and produce poly(p-anthracene ethynylene) molecular wires on Au(111). To this aim, a quinoid anthracene precursor with =CBr2 moieties is deposited and annealed to 400 K, resulting in anthracene-based polymers. High-resolution nc-AFM measurements confirm the nature of the ethynylene-bridge bond between the anthracene moieties. Theoretical simulations illustrate the mechanism of the chemical reaction, highlighting three major steps: dehalogenation, diffusion of surface-stabilized carbenes, and homocoupling, which enables the formation of an ethynylene bridge. Our results introduce a novel chemical protocol to design π-conjugated polymers based on oligoacene precursors and pave new avenues for advancing the emerging field of on-surface synthesis.

• Keywords
• acenes, low-band-gap semiconductors, polymers, scanning probe microscopy, surface chemistry,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH