10.17639/NOTT.25
Beton, Peter
The nucleation and early stages of layer-by-layer growth of metal organic frameworks on surfaces
University Of Nottingham
2015
Nanocrystals
Atomic force microscopy
Nucleation
Supramolecular organometallic chemistry
Crystallography
Surfaces
Nanostructures
Crystal growth
Metal organic frameworks, SURMOFs, atomic force microscopy, HKUST
JACS Subjects::Physical sciences::Chemistry::Physical chemistry
JACS Subjects::Physical sciences::Physics::Chemical physics, Solid-state physics
Library of Congress Subject Areas::Q Science::QC Physics::QC170 Atomic physics. Constitution and properties of matter
Library of Congress Subject Areas::Q Science::QD Chemistry::QD450 Physical and theoretical chemistry
University Of Nottingham
University Of Nottingham
2015-09-15
2015-09-15
2015-09-14
en
https://rdmc.nottingham.ac.uk/handle/internal/28
High resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used to resolve the evolution of crystallites of a metal organic framework (HKUST-1) grown on Au(111) using a liquid-phase layer-by-layer methodology. The nucleation and faceting of individual crystallites is followed by repeatedly imaging the same sub-micron region after each cycle of growth and we find that the growing surface is terminated by {111} facets leading to the formation of pyramidal nanostructures for [100] oriented crystallites, and triangular [111] islands with typical lateral dimensions of 10s of nanometres. AFM images reveal that crystallites can grow by 5-10 layers in each cycle. The growth rate depends on crystallographic orientation and the morphology of the gold substrate, and we demonstrate that under these conditions the growth is nanocrystalline with a morphology determined by the minimum energy surface.