Designing molecular nano-architectures on metals and on graphene

Nano-engineering of molecular two-dimensional materials brings exciting opportunities to achieve novel and tunable surface functionalities. Among these nanomaterials, graphene (a single-layer of carbon atoms) and supramolecular architectures on surfaces are the central topic of this thesis. Scanning tunneling and non-contact atomic force microscopy have been used to study the fundamental aspects of molecular self-assembly on surfaces pushing the real space resolution to the current achievable limit by “looking inside the molecules”. In this way, self-organized molecular architectures could be characterized in great detail. In this work, a new way for the creation of graphene on a substrate relevant for industrial microchips production was also developed. This is regarded an important step for the realization of graphene devices. Moreover, the possibility to integrate molecular nano-architectures and graphene is discussed and pursued toward a fine engineering of molecular two-dimensional materials.