Anti-cooperative Self-Assembly with Maintained Emission Regulated by Conformational and Steric Effects

Abstract

Herein, we present a strategy to enable a maintained emissive behavior in the self-assembled state by enforcing an anti-cooperative self-assembly involving weak intermolecular dye interactions. To achieve this goal, we designed a conformationally flexible monomer unit 1 with a central 1,3-substituted (diphenyl)urea hydrogen bonding synthon that is tethered to two BODIPY dyes featuring sterically bulky trialkoxybenzene substituents at the meso-position. The competition between attractive forces (H-bonding and aromatic interactions) and destabilizing effects (steric and competing conformational effects) limits the assembly, halting the supramolecular growth at the stage of small oligomers. Given the presence of weak dye–dye interactions, the emission properties of molecularly dissolved 1 are negligibly affected upon aggregation. Our findings contribute to broadening the scope of emissive supramolecular assemblies and controlled supramolecular polymerization.