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Nanofibers and Nanospirals Fabricated through the Interfacial Organization of a Partially Fluorinated Compound
journal contribution
posted on 2007-10-23, 00:00 authored by Penglei Chen, Xiaoguang Ma, Yiqun Zhang, Kaiming Hu, Minghua LiuNanostructures composed of fluorinated compounds are of great interest both for fundamental investigations and
practical applications. In this paper, we have investigated the supramolecular assembly of two carbamate derivatives,
3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,10,11,11,12,12,12-henicosa fluorododecyl 1-naphthylcarbamate (F10C2Np) and
3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,10,11,11,12,12,12-henicosa fluorododecyl phenylcarbamate (F10C2Ph), which bear partially
fluorinated alkyl tails on their molecular skeletons, through the air/water interfacial organization. It has been found
that F10C2Np could form nanofiber or nanospiral structure with a dimension of several micrometers, while F10C2Ph
formed straight ribbon-like structures. More interestingly, when the multilayer films of both of the compounds were
subjected to the circular dichroism (CD) measurements, distinct CD signals could be detected, although the compounds
themselves are optically inactive. Based on a series of characterizations on the films and the structural features of
the molecules, a size mismatching effect was suggested to explain the interesting phenomenon.