The Nazin Lab’s article, “Real-Space Visualization of Conformation-Independent Oligothiophene Electronic Structure,” was published online in The Journal of Chemical Physics on May 17, 2016. In this article, we presented scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM/STS) investigations of the electronic structures of different alkyl-substituted oligothiophenes on the Au(111) surface, showing that on Au(111) oligothiophenes adopt distinct straight and bent conformations. We combined STS maps with STM images to visualize, in real space, particle-in-a-box-like oligothiophene molecular orbitals. We demonstrated that different planar conformers with significant geometrical distortions of oligothiophene backbones surprisingly exhibit very similar electronic structures, indicating a low degree of conformation-induced electronic disorder. The agreement of these results with gas-phase density functional theory calculations implies that the oligothiophene interaction with the Au(111) surface is generally insensitive to molecular conformation.

The article is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4949765.