Anisotropic Self-Assembly of Photoluminescent Oligo(p-Phenylenevinylene) Derivatives in Liquid Crystals: An Effective Strategy for the Macroscopic Alignment of π-Gels

摘要

Molecular self-assembly is a powerful and versatile approach to develop functional materials. Appropriate design and tuning of non-covalent forces such as hydrogen bonding, π-stacking, and van der Waals interactions lead to the construction of self-organized soft materials such as liquid crystals and physical gels. The incorporation of π-conjugated moieties into the scaffolds of such supramolecular assemblies should result in nanostrucrured functional materials that are applicable as future materials for molecular electronics and photonics. Inspired by this concept, functionalization of 1D fibrous aggregates of low-molecular-weight gelators has been keenly studied in recent years. A variety of π-conjugated functional moieties, such as tetrathiafulvalene,oligothiophene, oligo-(p-phenylenevinylene), oligo(p-phenyleneethynylene), oligoacene, perylene bisimide, and oligophenylene moieties, have been integrated into 1D fibrous aggregates and these materials showed anisotropic electrical conduction and stimuli-responsive optical properties.