[en] Full text: We present an investigation of the surface-confined growth of one-dimensional (1D) covalently interlinked polymers on metal surfaces formed through decarboxylative coupling of isophthalic acid (IPA) and 3,5 pyridinedicarboxylic acid (PDC). The reactions were studied by x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS). Recently, Gao et al. reported successful decarboxylative coupling facilitated via a threestep process. A schematic overview of the reaction pathway for IPA is shown in Fig.1. IPA and PDC were deposited on Cu (111) followed by annealing a range of temperatures up to 300 °C, and the reactions were studied by XPS. The molecular structure can be inferred from the evolution of the C1s core level, where the signatures of dehydrogenation and decarboxylation are clearly evident. XPS showed deprotonation and decarboxylation are completed upon annealing at 230°C and 270°C, respectively. The decarboxylation approach can be applied to many other carboxyl-terminated molecules to produce tailored 1D and 2D polymers with broad potential in nanotechnology. Such systems might be of central importance to develop future electronic and optoelectronic devices with high quality active materials, besides representing model systems for basic science investigations. Acknowledgements This research was undertaken on the Soft X-Ray beamline at the Australian Synchrotron, part of ANSTO. We acknowledge the Australian Synchrotron for travel support to perform these experiments. Some data were also obtained at the Central Analytical Research Facility operated by the Institute for Future Environments (QUT). (author)