Conjugated Polymer Nanostructures via Molecular Self-assembly

“Molecular self-assembly via non-covalent secondary interaction is an emerging approach for constructing small and large size polymeric materials. The unique advantage of the self-assembly is that nano or micron-meter sized molecular architectures could be easily assembled or disassociated by stimuli such as pH, temperature and concentration, etc. The self-assembly approach is particularly interesting in macromolecular system because the resultant structures could be processed into desired objects with good mechanical and environmental stability. Molecular self-assembly technique is employed in electrically conducting -conjugated polymers or materials to tune their applications in high performance optoelectronic devices such as diodes and photovoltaics. In the last few years, we have been exploring the molecular self-assembly concept in designing high performance -conjugated systems for chemical and biological sensors as well as optoelectronics. We have developed amphiphilic surfactant derivatives from renewable resources and they were successfully self-assembled into spherical micelles, vesicles or organogel nano-tubes. These novel soft templates were utilized for producing one and three dimensional conducting polymer nanostructures. Aromatic -stacking and van der Waals interactions were manipulated in the -conjugated chains to make new classes of ring banded supramolecular structures. Functionalized -conjugated polymers were also designed for selective sensing of toxic metal ions like Hg2+ in water and for generating white light emission. The self-assembled molecular template approach provides new opportunity in designing well defined polymer nanomaterials more specifically -conjugated systems. The presentation will be focused on our recent work in the above subject.”