Solvent effect on hierarchical assembly of 2-aminooctane-functionalized naphthalenediimide

Abstract

Hierarchical assembly of 2-aminooctane-functionalized naphthalenediimide (NDI) was investigated via a solvent displacement method. That is, a good solvent (ethyl acetate) of NDI was fast dispersed into a poor solvent (methanol, methanol + water, or water). The NDI assemblies with varied scale, shape, and aggregation were formed and fully characterized by SEM, TEM, EDX, UV-vis, and fluorescence. The results demonstrated that the use of a mixture of two poor solvents can provide fine-tuning of intermolecular interactions. In addition, to reveal the structure–property correlation, the I–V characteristics of the as-obtained NDI architectures were explored.