Thermally and Vibrationally Induced Tautomerization of Single Porphycene Molecules on a Cu(110) Surface

Journal article, 2013

We report the direct observation of intramolecular hydrogen atom transfer reactions (tautomerization) within a single porphycene molecule on a Cu(110) surface by scanning tunneling microscopy. It is found that the tautomerization can be induced via inelastic electron tunneling at 5 K. By measuring the bias-dependent tautomerization rate of isotope-substituted molecules, we can assign the scanning tunneling microscopy-induced tautomerization to the excitation of specific molecular vibrations. Furthermore, these vibrations appear as characteristic features in the dI/dV spectra measured over individual molecules. The vibrational modes that are associated with the tautomerization are identified by density functional theory calculations. At higher temperatures above similar to 75 K, tautomerization is induced thermally and an activation barrier of about 168 meV is determined from an Arrhenius plot.