Hierarchical Self-assembly in Multi-length Scale & Tractable π-Molecular Liquids
e-mail: hmori@issp.u-tokyo.ac.jpLanguage in Speech : Japanese
Our studies focus on developing optoelectronically functional molecular-based materials that are facilely tractable in our hands and have a size of macroscopic length scale. Such molecular materials are designed simply from controlling a balance of intermolecular interactions in the alkyl-π compounds, i.e., van der Waals and π-π interactions among adjacent molecules (“alkyl- π engineering”). Herein, novel type self-assembly techniques of alkyl-π compounds are presented. One direction is using its molecular liquid state, for use as they are or for the self-assembly environment with appropriate additives. The alkyl-π liquids show thermally- and optically-stable luminescent feature while resulting nanosheets and microfiber-gel by a post-assembly treatment exhibit photoconductivity. Another intriguing self-assembly strategy is at the air-water interfaces and forms into hierarchically ordered hemispherical microparticle array, like compound eye structure, in centimeter length scale. This macroscopic assembled structure is only achieved from the molecular self-assembly initiated at the water/organic solvent interface and successive organic solvent evaporation can allow the anisotropic particle growth as well as their hexagonal array formation. In the presentation, its detail formation mechanism is discussed.
References:
Angew. Chem.Int.Ed.,2012,51,3391-3395.(Highlighted in Nature, 2012,484,9.)
Nature Commun.,2013,4,1969.(DOI:10.1038/ncomms2969)
Nature Chem.,2014,6,690-696.