Coadsorption of ferrocene-terminated and unsubstituted alkanethiols on gold: electroactive self-assembled monolayers

TLDR: In this paper, a self-assembled monolayer with low concentrations of alkanethiols linked to ferrocene by a polar ester group (FcCO{sub 2}(CH{sub n}SH, Fc = ({eta}{sup 5}-C{sub 5}H{sub 4}Fe }) showed thermodynamically ideal surface electrochemistry.

Abstract: Self-assembled monolayers provide an ideal system for disentangling the fundamental events in interfacial electron transfer. Coadsorption of ferrocene-terminated alkanethiols with unsubstituted n-alkanethiols on evaporated gold films yields stable, electroactive self-assembled monolayers. Monolayers containing low concentrations of alkanethiols linked to ferrocene by a polar ester group (FcCO{sub 2}(CH{sub 2}){sub n}SH, Fc = ({eta}{sup 5}-C{sub 5}H{sub 5})Fe({eta}{sup 5}-C{sub 5}H{sub 4})) show thermodynamically ideal surface electrochemistry in 1 M HClO{sub 4}, indicating the ferrocene groups to be homogeneous and noninteracting. Higher surface concentrations or use of alkanethiols linked directly to the nonpolar ferrocene group (Fc(CH{sub 2}){sub n}SH) lead to broadened electrochemical features, indicating interactions among ferrocene groups or inhomogeneous sites. Longer chain lengths and lower ferrocene surface concentrations result in slower electron-transfer kinetics with the ferrocene groups. A fraction of the thiols in a monolayer exchange with thiols in an ethanol solution, but much of the monolayer remains unequilibrated after 10 days.