Aryl amphiphile shape-directors for shape-controlled synthesis of organic semiconductor particles

Abstract

Currently, shape- and size-controlled synthesis of organic micro- and nano-particles mostly relies on aliphatic amphiphiles, which lack the structural diversity to provide tunable amphiphile–particle facet interaction energies and result in a limited range of particle shapes. Herein we report the design, synthesis, and utilization of two novel aryl amphiphiles as shape-directors (ShaDs) to obtain particles of different shape. By changing the ShaDs aryl hydrophobe structure, 9,10-diphenylanthracene microcrystals of different shape were obtained with greater than 90% shape yield.