IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v5y2014i1d10.1038_ncomms6568.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Non-additivity of molecule-surface van der Waals potentials from force measurements

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Wagner

    (Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich
    Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)-Fundamentals of Future Information Technology)

  • Norman Fournier

    (Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich
    Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)-Fundamentals of Future Information Technology)

  • Victor G. Ruiz

    (Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft)

  • Chen Li

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung)

  • Klaus Müllen

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung)

  • Michael Rohlfing

    (Institut für Festkörpertheorie der Universität Münster)

  • Alexandre Tkatchenko

    (Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft)

  • Ruslan Temirov

    (Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich
    Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)-Fundamentals of Future Information Technology)

  • F. Stefan Tautz

    (Peter Grünberg Institut (PGI-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich
    Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)-Fundamentals of Future Information Technology)

Abstract

Van der Waals (vdW) forces act ubiquitously in condensed matter. Despite being weak on an atomic level, they substantially influence molecular and biological systems due to their long range and system-size scaling. The difficulty to isolate and measure vdW forces on a single-molecule level causes our present understanding to be strongly theory based. Here we show measurements of the attractive potential between differently sized organic molecules and a metal surface using an atomic force microscope. Our choice of molecules and the large molecule-surface separation cause this attraction to be purely of vdW type. The experiment allows testing the asymptotic vdW force law and its validity range. We find a superlinear growth of the vdW attraction with molecular size, originating from the increased deconfinement of electrons in the molecules. Because such non-additive vdW contributions are not accounted for in most first-principles or empirical calculations, we suggest further development in that direction.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Wagner & Norman Fournier & Victor G. Ruiz & Chen Li & Klaus Müllen & Michael Rohlfing & Alexandre Tkatchenko & Ruslan Temirov & F. Stefan Tautz, 2014. "Non-additivity of molecule-surface van der Waals potentials from force measurements," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 1-8, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6568
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6568
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6568
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms6568?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6568. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.