Two-dimensional Chiral Honeycomb Structures of Unnatural Amino Acids on Au(111)

Crystallization has become the most popular technique for the separation of enantiomers since the Pasteur's discovery. To investigate mechanism of crystallization of chiral molecules, it is necessary to study self-assembled structures on two-dimensional surface. Here, we have studied two-dimensional self-assembled structures of an unnatural amino acid, (S)-${\beta}$-methyl naphthalen-1-${\gamma}$-aminobutyric acid (${\gamma}^2$-1-naphthylalanine) on Au(111) surface at 150 K using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). At initial stage, we found two chiral honeycomb structures which are counter-clockwise and clockwise configurations in one domain. The molecules are arranged around molecular vacancies, dark hole. By further increasing the amounts of adsorbed ${\gamma}^2$-1-naphthylalanine, a well-ordered square packed structure was observed. In addition, we found the other structure that molecules were trapped in the pore of the hexagonal molecular assembly.