Epitaxy and scanning tunneling microscopy image contrast of copper-phthalocyanine on graphite and MoS2

Abstract

Monolayers of copper–phthalocyanine (Cu–Pc) on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) and MoS2 prepared by organic molecular beam epitaxy have been investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. On both substrates there exist well defined preparation conditions leading to ordered two-dimensional arrays of flat lying molecules. On HOPG they form a close-packed structure with a nearly quadratic unit cell, whereas on MoS2 we found two phases, one close-packed and one rowlike phase. This rowlike phase can be explained by a long range interaction due to an adsorbate induced superstructure of the substrate, which also can be seen in the scanning tunneling microscopy images. In images with submolecular resolution, the molecules appear different on the two substrates. On MoS2 they look like a four-leaved clover, on graphite they show a more detailed inner structure.