1 research outputs found
Mapping Atomic-Scale Metal–Molecule Interactions: Salient Feature Extraction through Autoencoding of Vibrational Spectroscopy Data
Atomic-scale features, such as step edges and adatoms,
play key
roles in metal–molecule interactions and are critically important
in heterogeneous catalysis, molecular electronics, and sensing applications.
However, the small size and often transient nature of atomic-scale
structures make studying such interactions challenging. Here, by combining
single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy with machine learning,
spectra are extracted of perturbed molecules, revealing the formation
dynamics of adatoms in gold and palladium metal surfaces. This provides
unique insight into atomic-scale processes, allowing us to resolve
where such metallic protrusions form and how they interact with nearby
molecules. Our technique paves the way to tailor metal–molecule
interactions on an atomic level and assists in rational heterogeneous
catalyst design