Surfactant-Assisted Lateral Self-Assembly of One-Dimensional Supramolecular Aggregates of Lutetium Double-Decker Phthalocyaninates

The development of feasible strategies for integrating 1D organic semiconductors into films is a challenging issue for organic electronics exploiting planar architectures of microelectronic devices. Herein we describe the method of planar organization of 1D supramolecular aggregates assembled from lutetium crown-substituted double-decker phthalocyaninate into ordered ultrathin films. The method utilizes the Langmuir-Blodgett technique in combination with adding tert-butylamine during the synthesis of the supramolecular aggregates. The atomic force microscopy examination of the resulting films shows that the introduction of surfactant promotes spreading of hydrophobic aggregates on the water subphase yielding ordered ultrathin layers. The size of aggregates can be controlled by varying the ratio of the phthalocyanine ligands and surfactant in the system. The size of the aggregates increases with the concentration of the surfactant, whereas the morphology of the films evolves from a filamentary continuous structure to individual nanowires immobilized in the surfactant layer. The proposed strategy can be used to obtain ordered coatings from 1D aggregates from various organic discotics with semiconductor properties.