Bottom-up design and assembly with superatomic building blocks

Abstract

Constructing specific structures from the bottom up with artificial units is an important interdisciplinary topic involving physics, chemistry, materials, and so on. In this work, we theoretically demonstrated the feasibility of using superatoms as building blocks to assemble a complex at atomic-level precision. By using a series of actinide-based endohedral metallofullerene (EMF) superatoms that can form one, two, three and four chemical bonds, a planar complex with intra- and inter-molecular interactions was assembled on the Au(111) surface. This complex is composed of two parts, containing ten and eight superatoms, respectively. The electronic structure analysis shows that the electron density inside each part is connected and the closed-shell electronic arrangement system is designed. There is also an obvious van der Waals boundary by physical adsorption between the two parts, and a stable complex is formed. Since this complex is realized by the first-principles calculations of quantum mechanics, our results help not only achieve atomic-level precision construction with artificial superatomic units but also maintain atomic-level functional properties.