Soft-Landing Electrospray Deposition of the Ruthenium Dye N3 on Au(111)

Ruthenium dyes (N3) are deposited by in situ ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) electrospray ionization on a Au(111) surface and investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. The molecules exhibit some fragmentation at deposition energies around 7 eV, while deposition of intact molecules is feasible with energies of 2.5 eV. A variety of adsorption geometries is found that are analyzed using spectroscopy of vibronic excitations and DFT calculations.