Preferential Trapping of C60 in Nanomesh Voids

Surface nanotemplate-assisted molecular assembly offers great potential in the "bottom-up" construction of addressable molecular architectures for device miniaturization. Here, we report the fabrication of an extended 2D C60 nanomesh featuring a well-ordered nanocavity array by controlling the binary molecular phases of C60 and pentacene on Ag(111). Using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy, we demonstrate that the C60 nanomesh can serve as an effective template to selectively accommodate guest C60 molecules at the cavity sites, thereby leading to the formation of an ordered 2D C60 array.