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  Greber, T. ; Sljivancanin, Z. ; Schillinger, R. ; Wider, J. ; Hammer, B.: Chiral recognition of organic molecules by atomic kinks on surfaces. Physical Review Letters 96 (2006), p. 056103/1-4

Abstract:
Two distinct non-mirror-symmetric conformations of D- and L-cysteine were found after adsorption on Au(17 11 9)S. This demonstrates chiral heterorecognition, i.e. enantioselectivity of S-kinks on vicinal Au(111). The structures as determined by angle scanned X-ray photoelectron diffraction (XPD) agree well with those from density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The calculations predict adsorption energies of ~2 eV where D-cysteine binds 140 meV stronger than L-cysteine. The classical three point contact model for molecular recognition fails to explain these findings.