On-Surface Solvent-Free Crystal-to-Co-crystal Conversion by Non-Covalent Interactions

Enabling and understanding new methodologies to fabricate molecular assemblies driven by intermolecular interactions is fundamental in chemistry. Such forces can be used to control crystal growth and enable surface-confinement of these materials, which remains challenging. Here we demonstrate for the first time, a solvent-free on-surface crystal-to-co-crystal conversion process driven by halogen bonding (XB). By exposing a polycrystalline organic material, consisting of a XB-acceptor moiety, to the vapors of a complementary XB-donor compound, the corresponding halogen-bonded co-crystals were formed. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this approach can also be utilized for non-crystalline materials to afford surface-confined organic composites. Our stepwise vapor-based approach offers a new strategy for the formation of hybrid supramolecular materials.