Guiding the Formation of Surface-Confined 2D Metal–Organic Coordination Networks by Variation of Constituent Landing Energy in Electrospray Deposition of an Iron(II) Grid Complex

The combination of electrospray ionization with ion beam deposition in ultra-high vacuum has opened new opportunities to research non-sublimable molecules on solid surfaces in recent years. An Fe(II) [2 × 2] grid complex was deposited on Ag(111) and investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. Low landing energies (< 3 eV z⁻¹) resulted in clusters and single structures with potentially intact coordination bonds. Higher landing energies (> 3 eV z⁻¹) led to coordination bond cleavage and a rich variety of self-assembled surface networks formed spontaneously by the grid fragments. Applying established on-surface synthesis methodology employing the constituents of these networks (ligands and Fe atoms) reproduced only a part of them. It is thus proposed that electrospray ion beam deposition is a different route to on-surface coordination network synthesis.