Structural changes of an octanethiol monolayer via hyperthermal rare-gas collisions

In situ scanning tunneling microscopy is used to measure the effect of hyperthermal rare-gas bombardment on octanethiol self-assembled monolayers. Close-packed monolayers remain largely unchanged, even after repeated collisions with 0.4 eV argon and 1.3 eV xenon atoms. In contrast, gas-surface collisions do induce structural changes in the octanethiol film near defects, domain boundaries, and disordered regions, with relatively larger changes observed for xenon-atom bombardment.