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Materials built up of molecules and molecular ions utilizing relatively weak non-covalent interactions, form an important class of soft materials. The emergence and relevance of molecular materials and the basic paradigm of the molecules-to-materials transition will form the
background of this lecture. Development of simple protocols to tune the molecular assembly and the materials responses can open up new avenues for the hierarchical build-up of molecular materials. The talk will focus on the versatility of a class of molecules called diaminodicyanoquinodimethanes (DADQ) to develop and demonstrate the different concepts. After a brief review of our early work on nonlinear optical materials based on DADQ’s1 the focus will shift to the strong fluorescence that they exhibit in crystals and nanocrystals.2 The amorphous-tocrystalline transformation of DADQ nanoparticles3 demonstrates a new approach to the control of molecular assembly and the optical properties. The talk will conclude with a reference to recent
observations that suggest the potential use of DADQ’s as phase change materials, a novel development for small molecule based materials.
1. T. P. Radhakrishnan, Acc. Chem. Res. 2008, 41, 367.
2. A. Patra, Ch. G. Chandaluri, T. P. Radhakrishnan, Nanoscale 2012, 4, 343.
3. Ch. G. Chandaluri, T. P. Radhakrishnan, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 11849.
Acknowledgments: We thank the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi for financial support and the Centre for Nanotechnology, University of Hyderabad for infrastructure support.
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