Scanning Force Microscopy Study of Ultrathin Films of Nickel-Phthalocyanine on Graphite

Abstract

Small amounts of purified nickel-phthalocyanine (Ni-PC) have been deposited at room temperature in ultrahigh vacuum onto highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, and studied "in situ" and "ex situ" (in air) with two different atomic force microscopes. The measurements have been taken on samples as prepared either subsequently annealed at 300°C. The growth mode is not uniform; the PC molecules coalesce into small submicrometric crystallites in the critical size range where the transition from the α to the β crystalline phase of phthalocyanines takes place. We show images of both α-like and β-like crystallites. A contact mode AFM image of an α-like crystallite showing intramolecular resolution is also presented.