Iron–phthalocyanine (FePc) molecules deposited
on the Au(110)
surface self-organize in ordered chains driven by the reconstructed
Au channels. The interaction process induces a rehybridization of
the electronic states localized on the central metal atom, breaking
the 4-fold symmetry of the molecular orbitals of the FePc molecules.
The molecular adsorption is controlled by a symmetry-determined mixing
between the electronic states of the Fe metal center and of the Au
substrate, as deduced by photoemission and absorption spectroscopy
exploiting light polarization. DFT calculations rationalize this mixing
of the Fe and Au states on the basis of symmetry arguments. The calculated
electronic structure reproduces the main experimental spectral features,
which are associated to a distorted molecular structure displaying
a trigonal bipyramidal geometry of the ligands around the metal center