On-Surface Synthesis of Iron Phthalocyanine Using Metal-Organic Coordination Templates.

On-surface synthesis provides a convenient route to many kinds of conjugated molecular nanostructures, but it has remained challenging to precisely control the reaction pathway for using multicomponent precursors. Herein, we demonstrate a two-step strategy to synthesize iron phthalocyanine (FePc) molecules using metal-organic coordination for templating by using high-resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy and non-contact atomic force microscopy. In a first step, 1,2,4,5-tetracyanobenzene (TCNB) precursors and Fe atoms self-assembly into Fe(TCNB)4 coordination complexes on a clean Au(111) surface. The Fe(TCNB)4 complexes further undergo cyclic tetramerization upon thermal annealing, forming single FePc molecules. We expect that our demonstrated synthetic strategy may shed light on the design and synthesis of two-dimensional extended conjugated systems.