作者:Patrick van Rijn、Dainius Janeliunas、Aurélie M. Brizard、Marc C. A. Stuart、Ger J. M. Koper、Rienk Eelkema、Jan H. van Esch
DOI:10.1039/c0nj00760a
日期:——
Conjugated self-assembled systems in water are of great interest because of their potential application in biocompatible supramolecular electronics, but so far their supramolecular chemistry remains almost unexplored. Here we present amphiphilic terthiophenes as a general self-assembling platform for the construction of conjugated aggregates, providing access to aggregates with different morphologies without changing the basic molecular design. We explored the design parameters of these amphiphilic terthiophenes in detail, leading to the selection and synthesis of in total 8 new amphiphilic oligothiophenes. Their aggregation behaviour was investigated by absorbance and fluorescence spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, and cryo-transmission electron microscopy. Critical micelle concentrations as low as 0.01 mM were found and different sized aggregates ranging from several nanometres up to 200 nm. The aggregate morphology could also be tuned by changing the substitution pattern of hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties, leading to different types of aggregates ranging from globular- and elongated micelles to bilayers. Remarkably, aggregation had only little effect on the electronic and spectroscopic properties of the oligothiophenes, which will be of interest for their application in supramolecular electronics.
水中共轭自组装体系引起了人们的极大兴趣,因为它们在生物相容超分子电子学中的潜在应用,但到目前为止,它们的超分子化学几乎没有被探索过。在这里,我们提出了两亲性三噻吩作为构建共轭聚集体的一种通用自组装平台,能够在不改变基本分子设计的情况下,提供不同形态的聚集体。我们详细探讨了这些两亲性三噻吩的设计参数,从而选择和合成了总共8种新的两亲性寡噻吩。通过吸光度和荧光光谱、动态光散射以及冷冻透射电子显微镜,我们研究了它们的聚集行为。发现临界微胞浓度低至0.01 mM,聚集体的尺寸范围从几纳米到200纳米不等。通过改变亲水和疏水基团的取代模式,聚集体的形态也可以调节,形成从球状和伸长的微胞到双层膜的不同类型的聚集体。值得注意的是,聚集对寡噻吩的电子和光谱特性几乎没有影响,这将对它们在超分子电子学中的应用引起关注。