Ambient-pressure vapor deposition of octanethiol self-assembled monolayers

Scanning tunneling microscopy was used to characterize self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of octanethiol on Au(111), created using vapor deposition at elevated temperatures and ambient pressure. Monolayers contained large, close-packed (root 3 x root 3)R30 degrees domains with sizes considerably larger than those typically formed from conventional solution-phase preparation and with crystallographically straight domain boundaries. New striped surface phases were also observed, including a 13 x root 3 phase with a density that was 69% of the close-packed density; these striped phases appeared topographically higher in STM images than close-packed monolayers.