Phthalocyanines have been the subject of intense studies, due to their wide range of optical, structural and electronic properties arising from their large pi-conjugated system and their assembling into co facially-stacked arrays. Furthermore, at the peripheral binding sites a variety of magnetic, electronic, redox and photo-active components could be attached.
We study a phthalocyanine derivative which contains eight ditertbutylphenyl substituents. Thin films of the derivative are prepared in a UHV setup on metal crystals by evaporation. The investigations are carried out with a homebuilt STM at room temperature.
The investigated derivative is considered as a precursor for the examination of other functionalized phthalocyanine derivatives. Particularly, the tetrathiafulvalene-annulated phthalocyanine is an interesting candidate, because of its redox properties. [1]

[1] C. Loosli, C. Jia, M. Haas, M. Dias, E. Levillain, S.-X. Liu, A. Hauser, S. Decurtins,
J. Org. Chem., 2005, 70(13), 4988-4992