Effect of halo substitution on the geometry of arenethiol films on Cu(111).

Incomplete coverages of p-fluorothiophenol, p-chlorothiophenol, and p-bromothiophenol form ordered islands on a Cu(111) surface even at low temperatures. The complexity of the molecular patterns increases from a simple (3 x 4) superlattice to a honeycomb (8 x 8)R19 degrees structure with increasing substituent electronegativity. We propose a model based on quadrupolar intermolecular interactions to account for this observation.