On-Surface Site-Selective Cyclization of Corrole Radicals

Stefano Tebi, M. Paszkiewicz, Hazem Aldahhak, F. Allegretti, Sabrina Gonglach, Michael Haas, Mario Waser, P. S. Deimel, P. Casado Aguilar, Y.-Q. Zhang, A. C. Papageorgiou, D. A. Duncan, Johannes V. Barth, Wolf Gero Schmidt, Reinhold Koch, Uwe Gerstmann, Eva Rauls, F. Klappenberger, Wolfgang Schöfberger, Stefan Müllegger

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Radical cyclization is among the most powerful and versatile reactions for constructing mono- and polycyclic systems, but has, to date, remained unexplored in the context of on-surface synthesis. We report the controlled on-surface synthesis of stable corrole radicals on Ag(111) via site-specific dehydrogenation of a pyrrole N−H bond in the 5,10,15-tris(pentafluoro-phenyl)-corrole triggered by annealing at 330 K under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. We reveal a thermally induced regioselective cyclization reaction mediated by a radical cascade and resolve the reaction mechanism of the pertaining cyclodefluorination reaction at the single-molecule level. Via intramolecularly resolved probing of the radical-related Kondo signature, we achieve real space visualization of the distribution of the unpaired electron density over specific sites within the corrole radical. Annealing to 550 K initiates intermolecular coupling reactions, producing an extended π- conjugated corrole system.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3383−3391
Number of pages9
JournalACS Nano
Volume11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Fields of science

  • 210006 Nanotechnology
  • 103 Physics, Astronomy
  • 103011 Semiconductor physics
  • 103018 Materials physics
  • 202032 Photovoltaics
  • 103009 Solid state physics
  • 103017 Magnetism

JKU Focus areas

  • Engineering and Natural Sciences (in general)

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