Host-Guest Architecture for Single Molecule Manipulation

Manipulation at the solid/liquid interface:  A molecular monolayer polymorph of an oligopyridine forms a host-guest network with copper(II) phthalocyanine at the solid/liquid interface with controllable phthalocyanine occupation. The slow dynamics of the phthalocyanine guest molecules and the competition between oligopyridine and phthalocyanine guest molecules are utilised to manipulate individual guest molecules with the STM tip by voltage pulses in analogy to "writing" and "erasing". The arrows indicate the positioning of the tip and the circles show adsorbed and desorbed single molecules, respectively, after the voltage pulses and subsequent imaging.

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47  3821-3825