Invited Paper SS-ThM5
Exploring Enantioselectivity on Chirally Modified Surfaces in Ultrahigh Vacuum

Thursday, October 31, 2013, 9:20 am, Room 202 A

The mode of operation of heterogeneous chiral modifiers can be classified into those operating as templates, where several modifier molecules act in concert to define a chiral adsorption site, or one-to-one modifiers that form a docking complex between the modifier and a prochiral reactant. Enantioselectivity is measured by adsorbing chiral probe molecules onto chirally modified surfaces. Templating is illustrated using aminoacids on Pd(111). Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) reveals that some aminoacids form tetrameric units, and others form dimers. Only those aminoacids that form tetramers are enantioselective implying that the tetramers act as templates.

Naphthylethylamine (NEA) is proposed to acts as a one-to-one modifier. The interaction between NEA and a prochiral reactant, methyl pyruvate, is explored using STM. Possible docking complexes are identified using density functional theory and the simulated images are compared with experimental images.