Direct On-surface Synthesis of Gold-phthalocyanine via Cyclization of Cyano-groups with Gold Adatoms

We report the synthesis of gold–phthalocyanines on an Au(111) surface via cyclization of dibenzo[fg,op]tetracene-5,6,12,13-tetracarbonitrile molecules. Scanning tunnelling microscopic images unambiguously reveal that gold adatoms act as linkers via metal coordination bonding to form metastable supra-molecular structures, and simultaneously replace metal ions within the final products, metal phthalocyanines.