Catalysis

Chemical physics

Isomerization

Photochemistry

Materials science

Potential energy surface

Density functional theory

Molecule

Inorganic chemistry

Dissociation (chemistry)

Physical chemistry

Redox

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Computational chemistry

Scanning tunneling microscope

Chemistry

Selectivity

Science

Controlling selectivity of reactions is a quest in chemistry. Here, we demonstrate reversible and selective bond formation and dissociation promoted by tip-induced reduction-oxidation reactions on a surface. Molecular rearrangements leading to different constitutional isomers are selected by the polarity and magnitude of applied voltage pulses from the tip of a combined scanning tunneling and atomic force microscope. Characterization of voltage dependence of the reactions and determination of reaction rates demonstrate selectivity in constitutional isomerization reactions and provide insight into the underlying mechanisms. With support of density functional theory calculations, we find that the energy landscape of the isomers in different charge states is important to rationalize the selectivity. Tip-induced selective single-molecule reactions increase our understanding of redox chemistry and could lead to novel molecular machines.

Selectivity in single-molecule reactions by tip-induced redox chemistry