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Directed assembly of optoelectronically active alkyl-p-conjugated molecules by adding n-alkanes or p-conjugated species

Hollamby, MJ; Karny, M; Bomans, PH; Sommerdijk, NA; Saeki, A; Seki, S; Minamikawa, H; Grillo, I; Pauw, BR; Brown, P; Eastoe, J; Möhwald, H; Nakanishi, T

Authors

M Karny

PH Bomans

NA Sommerdijk

A Saeki

S Seki

H Minamikawa

I Grillo

BR Pauw

P Brown

J Eastoe

H Möhwald

T Nakanishi



Abstract

Supramolecular assembly can yield ordered structures by taking advantage of the cumulative effect of multiple non-covalent interactions between adjacent molecules. The thermodynamic origin of many self-assembled structures in water is the balance between the hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments of the molecule. Here, we show that this approach can be generalized to use solvophobic and solvophilic segments of fully hydrophobic alkylated fullerene molecules. Addition of n-alkanes results in their assembly--due to the antipathy of C60 towards n-alkanes--into micelles and hexagonally packed gel-fibres containing insulated C60 nanowires. The addition of pristine C60 instead directs the assembly into lamellar mesophases by increasing the proportion of p-conjugated material in the mixture. The assembled structures contain a large fraction of optoelectronically active material and exhibit comparably high photoconductivities. This method is shown to be applicable to several alkyl-p-conjugated molecules, and can be used to construct organized functional materials with p-conjugated sections.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 15, 2014
Online Publication Date Jun 22, 2014
Publication Date Aug 1, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Nature Chemistry
Print ISSN 1755-4330
Publisher Nature Publishing Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 6
Pages 690 - 696
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1977
Keywords Molecular self-assembly, Self-assembly
Publisher URL http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v6/n8/full/nchem.1977.html