  Molecules consisting of a donor and an acceptor moiety can exhibit large
intrinsic dipole moments. Upon deposition on a metal surface, the dipole may be
effectively screened and the charge distribution altered due to hybridization
with substrate electronic states. Here, we deposit Ethyl-Diaminodicyanoquinone
molecules, which exhibit a large dipole moment in gas phase, on a Au(111)
surface. Employing a combination of scanning tunneling microscopy and
non-contact atomic force microscopy, we find that a significant dipole moment
persists in the flat-lying molecules. Density-functional theory calculations
reveal that the dipole moment is even increased on the metal substrate as
compared to the gas phase. We also show that the local contact potential across
the molecular islands is decreased by several tens of meV with respect to the
bare metal. We explain this by the induced charge-density redistribution due to
the adsorbed molecules, which confine the substrate's wavefunction at the
interface. Our local measurements provide direct evidence of this so-called
push-back or cushion effect at the scale of individual molecules.
