Assembly of functional molecular nanostructures on surfaces.

This tutorial review discusses different techniques for the preparation and deposition on surfaces of organic nanostructures--monolayers, nanowires, nano-dots and other aggregates--with emphasis on the key role that chemical design and non-covalent interactions (between molecules themselves and molecules and surface) play in the definition of the final structure and its properties. The characterisation of the nanostructures and the important effects of post-deposition treatment are also touched upon. The tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) unit is used as the example to demonstrate the general principles that are applicable for these different nanoscale architectures, because of the interest of this family of compounds in molecular electronics.