Photoinduced organic nanowires from self-assembled monolayers

The self-assembled diacetylene molecular monolayer was prepared on highly oriented pyrolitic graphite and observed by scanning tunneling microscopy. Upon applying ultraviolet irradiation, the self-assembled conjugated polydiacetylene nanowires resulting from photoinduced topochemical reaction of diacetylene molecules were obtained. Control of the spacings between nanowires was achieved by a simple coadsorption method. The result presented here may supply a general method to obtain spacing-controllable organic nanowires. (C) 2002 American Vacuum Society.