Controlling drop-casting deposition of 2D Pt-octaethyl porphyrin layers on graphite

Abstract A drop-casting technique designed for getting a high control over thin layers of small organic molecules is assessed for the deposition of Pt-octaethyl porphyrin on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. We demonstrate that by a proper choice of solvent, namely anisole, it is possible to obtain an almost homogeneous 2D film at the micrometric scale in few minutes (evaporation time of the solvent). This growth strategy represents a reasonable alternative for Pt-octaethyl molecules deposition to longer and more expensive techniques in many applications and could be probably extended to other porphyrins and porphyrinic compounds.