Guiding the Formation of Surface‐Confined 2D Metal–Organic Coordination Networks by Variation of Constituent Landing Energy in Electrospray Deposition of an Iron(II) Grid Complex

The combination of electrospray ionization with ion beam deposition in ultra-high vacuum has opened new opportunities to research non-sublimable molecules on solid surfaces in recent years. An Fe(II) [2 × 2] grid complex was deposited on Ag(111) and investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. Low landing energies (< 3 eV z$^{−1}$) resulted in clusters and single structures with potentially intact coordination bonds. Higher landing energies (> 3 eV z$^{−1}$) led to coordination bond cleavage and a rich variety of self-assembled surface networks formed spontaneously by the grid fragments. Applying established on-surface synthesis methodology employing the constituents of these networks (ligands and Fe atoms) reproduced only a part of them. It is thus proposed that electrospray ion beam deposition is a different route to on-surface coordination network synthesis.