Self-Assembly of Individually Addressable Complexes of C60 and Phthalocyanines on a Metal Surface: Structural and Electronic Investigations

The hosting properties of a close-packed layer of phenoxy-substituted phthalocyanine derivatives adsorbed on Ag(III) were investigated for the adsorption of C-60 molecules. The C-60 molecules bind to two clearly distinguishable sites, namely, to the underlying metal substrate in between two adjacent phthalocyanine derivatives, leading to structural and electronic properties analogous to those of C-60 adsorbed on Ag(III), and to the core of the underlying phthalocyanine derivative, indicative of the formation of 1:1 donor-acceptor (D-A) dyads through a true host-guest interaction. The electronic properties have been determined by scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements on individual D-A dyads.