Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons exhibit a rich spectrum of physico-chemical properties depending on the size, and more critically, on the edge and bond topologies. Among them, open-shell systems – molecules hosting unpaired electron densities – represent an important class of materials for organic electronic, spintronic and optoelectronic devices, but remain challenging to synthesize in solution. We report the on-surface synthesis and scanning tunneling microscopy- and spectroscopy-based study of two ultra-low-gap open-shell molecules, namely peri-tetracene, a benzenoid graphene fragment with zigzag edge topology, and dibenzo[a,m]dicyclohepta[bcde,nopq]rubicene, a non-benzenoid non-alternant structural isomer of peri-tetracene with two embedded azulene units. Our results provide an understanding of the ramifications of altered bond topologies at the single-molecule scale, with the prospect of designing functionalities in carbon-based nanostructures via engineering of bond topology.

Acenes are an important class of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which have recently gained exceptional attention due to their potential as functional organic semiconductors. Fundamentally, they are important systems to study the convergence of physico-chemical properties of all-carbon sp²-frameworks in the one-dimensional limit; and by virtue of having a zigzag edge topology they also provide a fertile playground to explore magnetism in graphenic nanostructures. The study of larger acenes is thus imperative from both a fundamental and applied perspective, but their synthesis via traditional solution-chemistry route is hindered by their poor solubility and high reactivity. Here, we demonstrate the on-surface formation of heptacene and nonacene, via visible-light-induced photo-dissociation of α-bisdiketone precursors on an Au(111) substrate under ultra-high vacuum conditions. Through combined scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and non-contact atomic force microscopy investigations, together with state-of-the-art first principles calculations, we provide insight into the chemical and electronic structure of these elusive compounds.

Bottom-up synthesis of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) has significantly advanced during the past decade, providing various GNR structures with tunable properties. The synthesis of chiral GNRs, however, has been underexplored, and only limited to (3,1)-GNRs. We report herein the surface-assisted synthesis of the first heteroatom-doped chiral (4,1)-GNRs from the rationally designed precursor 6,16-dibromo-9,10,19,20-tetraoxa-9a,19a-diboratetrabenzo[a,f,j,o]perylene. The structure of the chiral GNRs has been verified by scanning tunneling microscopy, non-contact atomic force microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy in combination with theoretical modeling. Due to the presence of oxygen-boron-oxygen (OBO) segments on the edges, lateral self-assembly of the GNRs has been observed, realizing well-aligned GNR arrays with different modes of homochiral and heterochiral inter-ribbon assemblies.