Assembling a lasing hybrid material with supramolecular polymers and nanocrystals

The combination of bottom-up and top-down processes to organize nanophases in hybrid materials is a key strategy to create functional materials. We found that oxide and sulphide nanocrystals become spontaneously dispersed in organic media during the self-assembly of nanoribbon supramolecular polymers. These nanoribbon polymers form by self-assembly of dendron rodcoil molecules, which contain three molecular blocks with dendritic, rod-like, and coil-like architectures. In an electric field these supramolecular assemblies carrying bound nanocrystals migrate to the positive electrode in an etched channel and align in the field. In the system containing ZnO nanocrystals as the inorganic component, both phases are oriented in the hybrid material forming an ultraviolet lasing medium with a lower threshold relative to pure ZnO nanocrystals.