Scrolled Nanosheet with Thermo-Responsive Unrolling in Self-Assembly of Aromatic Amphiphile

Rod-coil molecules comprising rigid rod segments and flexible hydrophilic chains have gained attention for generating highly defined nanostructures in solution. In this work, we report the fabrication of scrolled sheet and planar sheet structures from the self-assembly of laterally grafted rod-coil molecules. The mono-grafted rod-coil self-assembles into a scrolled sheet through the spontaneous rolling-up of the planar sheet perpendicular to the fiber long axis, interestingly, the scrolled structures undergo unrolling at higher temperature, exhibiting a thermal-responsive behavior. In contrast, the symmetrically grafted rod-coil molecules form planar sheet structures that do not exhibit the rolling-up behavior.