Modeling nanoscopic formations of C60 on supporting substrates

Research into the controlled formation of nano-structured cluster-based layers on various types of supporting substrates occupies a very prominent place in both the experimental surface physics and in the newly emerging field of computational condensed matter physics, where such processes are modeled via computer-based numerical simulations at the atomic and molecular levels. One area of deep interest is the growth of nano-scale formations of C₆₀ fullerene on metallic and semi-conducting surfaces, which have potential applications in quantum-scale device fabrication. We review the field of C₆₀ adsorption on a variety of substrates, and then report on the highly accurate numerical simulations that we have performed to model the adsorption of this molecule on the Si and graphite substrates. We also report on the results of our computations of the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)-like images of a C₆₀ molecule adsorbed on a graphite surface to show that no tip-induced states were responsible for the presence of extra features purported to have been observed in an experiment on this system.