Self-assembled organic donor/acceptor nanojunction arrays

We have fabricated well-ordered organic donor/acceptor nanojunction arrays comprising $p$-sexiphenyl (6P) and $C60$ via self-assembly of $C60$ on the molecular nanotemplate of 6P nanostripes on Ag(111). Our scanning tunneling microscopy measurements show that the preferential trapping of $C60$ triplets atop 6P single molecule leads to the formation of the $C60∕6P$ vertical nanojunctions with well-defined two-dimensional arrangement. Annealing this binary molecular superstructure at $380K$ results in the insertion of $C60$ linear chains between the neighboring 6P nanostripes and thereby the appearance of the periodic $C60∕6P$ lateral nanojunction arrays.