Macroscopically Anisotropic Structures Produced by Light-induced Solvothermal Assembly of Porphyrin Dimers

Porphyrin-based molecules play an important role in natural biological systems such as photosynthetic antennae and haemoglobin. Recent organic chemistry provides artificial porphyrin-based molecules having unique electronic and optical properties, which leads to wide applications in material science. Here, we successfully produced many macroscopically anisotropic structures consisting of porphyrin dimers by light-induced solvothermal assembly with smooth evaporation in a confined volatile organic solvent. Light-induced fluid flow around a bubble on a gold nanofilm generated a sub-millimetre radial assembly of the tens-micrometre-sized petal-like structures. The optical properties of the petal-like structures depend on the relative angle between their growth direction and light polarisation, as confirmed by UV-visible extinction and the Raman scattering spectroscopy analyses, being dramatically different from those of structures obtained by natural drying. Thus, our findings pave the way to the production of structures and polycrystals with unique characteristics from various organic molecules.