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Controlling the Size, Shape and Stability of Supramolecular Polymers in Water
Published on: August 2, 2012
Self-assembly of semifluorinated dendrons attached to electron-donor groups mediates their pi-stacking via a helical
Virgil Percec1, Martin Glodde, Mihai Peterca
1Roy & Diana Vagelos Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6323, USA. percec@sas.upenn.edu
Abstract:
Semifluorinated first-generation self-assembling dendrons attached via a flexible spacer to electron-donor molecules induce pi-stacking of the donors in the center of a supramolecular helical pyramidal column. These helical pyramidal columns self-organize in various columnar liquid crystal phases that mediate self-processing of large single crystal liquid crystal domains of columns and self-repair their intracolumnar structural defects. In addition, all supramolecular columns exhibit a columnar phase at lower temperatures that maintains the helical pyramidal columnar supramolecular structure and displays higher intracolumnar order than that in the liquid crystals phases. The results described here demonstrate the universality of this concept, the power of the fluorous phase or the fluorophobic effect in self-assembly and the unexpected generality of pyramidal liquid crystals.
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