Organic crystal surfaces: Structure, properties and reactivity

The molecular structure of organic crystal surfaces plays an important role in crystal properties and crystal growth, and their behavior as nucleation substrates. The surfaces of organic crystals are rather well defined as they represent slices of their 3-dimensional (3D) structures, which generally are known from X-ray diffraction. Recent advances in surface characterization methods, particularly scanning probe microscopies, have revealed the structure of these surfaces and have allowed direct visualization of crystal growth at the near-molecular level. The molecular nature of these surfaces influences recognition processes responsible for their nucleation, as well as the nucleation of other organic crystals. Recent work also has demonstrated that two-dimensional (2D) crystals grown on solid substrates strongly resemble the 2D motifs of their corresponding bulk crystal surfaces.