Selectivity in tip-induced skeletal editing via heteroatom substitution
Researchers used tip-induced reactions on dinaphtho[1,8-bc:1',8'-ef]thiepine (DNT) adsorbed on NaCl to perform single-molecule skeletal editing. They found that sulfur deletion was the predominant reaction, yielding perylene. This demonstrates that choosing the heteroatom significantly controls which atom is removed during these precise structural modifications.