Amplification of Elementary Surface Reaction Steps on Transition Metal Surfaces Using Liquid Crystals: Dissociative Adsorption and Dehydrogenation

Elementary reaction steps, including adsorption and dissociation, of a range of molecular adsorbates on transition metal surfaces have been elucidated in the context of chemical catalysis. Here we leverage this knowledge to design liquid crystals (LCs) supported on ultrathin polycrystalline gold films (predominant crystallographic face is (111)) that are triggered to undergo orientational transitions by dissociative adsorption and dehydrogenation reactions involving chlorine and carboxylic acids, respectively, thus amplifying these atomic-scale surface processes in situ into macroscopic optical signals. We use electronic structure calculations to predict that 4'-n-pentyl-4-biphenylcarbonitrile (5CB), a room temperature nematic LC, does not bind to Au(111) in an orientation that changes upon dissociative adsorption of molecular chlorine, a result validated by experiments. In contrast, 4-cyano-4-biphenylcarboxylic acid (CBCA) is calculated to bind strongly to Au(111) in a perpendicular orientation via dehydrogenation of the carboxylic acid group, which we confirmed using polarization-modulation infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy. A maximum coverage of 0.07 monolayer of CBCA on the gold surface is sufficient to cause a perpendicular orientation of the LC. Dissociative adsorption of Cl-2 gas on the gold surface, resulting in 0.5 monolayer coverage of Cl, displaces CBCA from Au(111) and thus triggers a strikingly visible change in orientation of the LC. Infrared spectroscopy established the orientation of adsorbed CBCA to be parallel to the Cl covered surface, with the COOH plane perpendicular to the surface, as predicted by first-principles calculations. These results demonstrate the use of first-principles calculations and transition metal surfaces to design LCs that report in situ targeted atomic-scale surface processes.