Supramolecular polymers can be random and entangled coils with the mechanical properties of plastics and elastomers, but with great capacity for processability, recycling, and self-healing due to their reversible monomer-to-polymer transitions. At the other extreme, supramolecular polymers can be formed by self-assembly among designed subunits to yield shape-persistent and highly ordered filaments. The use of strong and directional interactions among molecular subunits can achieve not only rich dynamic behavior but also high degrees of internal order that are not known in ordinary polymers. They can resemble, for example, the ordered and dynamic one-dimensional supramolecular assemblies of the cell cytoskeleton and possess useful biological and electronic functions.

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Functional Supramolecular Polymers

Graphenes as potential material for electronics.

Functional π-Gelators and Their Applications

Supramolecular nanotube architectures based on amphiphilic molecules.

Discotic (disc-like) molecules typically comprising a rigid aromatic core and flexible peripheral chains have been attracting growing interest because of their fundamental importance as model systems for the study of charge and energy transport and due to the possibilities of their application in organic electronic devices. This critical review covers various aspects of recent research on discotic liquid crystals, in particular, molecular design concepts, supramolecular structure, processing into ordered thin films and fabrication of electronic devices. The chemical structure of the conjugated core of discotic molecules governs, to a large extent, their intramolecular electronic properties. Variation of the peripheral flexible chains and of the aromatic core is decisive for the tuning of self-assembly in solution and in bulk. Supramolecular organization of discotic molecules can be effectively controlled by the choice of the processing methods. In particular, approaches to obtain suitable macroscopic orientations of columnar superstructures on surfaces, that is, planar uniaxial or homeotropic alignment, are discussed together with appropriate processing techniques. Finally, an overview of charge transport in discotic materials and their application in optoelectronic devices is given (234 references).

Discotic liquid crystals: a new generation of organic semiconductors

An amphiphilic hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene self-assembles to form a π-electronic, discrete nanotubular object. The object is characterized by an aspect ratio greater than 1000 and has a uniform, 14-nanometer-wide, open-ended hollow space, which is an order of magnitude larger than those of carbon nanotubes. The wall is 3 nanometers thick and consists of helical arrays of the π-stacked graphene molecule, whose exterior and interior surfaces are covered by hydrophilic triethylene glycol chains. The graphitic nanotube is redox active, and a single piece of the nanotube across 180-nanometer-gap electrodes shows, upon oxidation, an electrical conductivity of 2.5 megohms at 285 kelvin. This family of molecularly engineered graphite with a one-dimensional tubular shape and a chemically accessible surface constitutes an important step toward molecular electronics.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/304/5676/1481.full.pdf

Self-Assembled Hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene Graphitic Nanotube

Self-Assembled Hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene

Conducting nanowires are very important to build up molecular devices. In this paper, we report a method of forming conducting nanowires using only commercially available materials, that is dehydrofluorination of poly(vinylidene fluoride) fibrils obtained by the anodized aluminum oxide template method. The nanowires showed electrical conductivity of the same order as that of dehydrofluorinated film.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1143/JJAP.48.030213/pdf

Hideki Ichihara

Papers

Self-Assembled Hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene Graphitic Nanotube

Self-Assembled Hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene

Conductivity Measurement of Single Nanowire Obtained by Dehydrofluorination of Nanofibrils of Poly(vinylidene difluoride)