Supramolecular phthalocyanine assemblies - a Linstead Career Award paper

Abstract

In this review I summarize our attempts to prepare supramolecular assemblies from phthalocyanine dyes, the objective being to design functional materials that have specific properties, e.g. electron conduction. We explore several supramolecular methods to achieve phthalocyanine assembly, e.g. by attaching crown ethers to the phthalocyanine rings and combining these with alkali metal ions, by providing them with long aliphatic tails, and by using aided assembly techniques such as wetting-dewetting interactions on surfaces. Also, chirality has been applied as a tool to produce new self-assembled structures. In our studies we focus on the electron conducting properties of the molecular materials and on their use as alignment layers for the fabrication of liquid-crystal displays.