Issue 35, 2023

Luminescent hexagonal microtubes prepared through water-induced self-assembly of a polymorphic organoboron compound: formation mechanism and waveguide behaviour

Abstract

Tetra-coordinated organoboron (TCOB) compounds are promising candidates for developing high-performance optical devices due to their excellent optoelectronic performance. Fabricating TCOB-based nanomaterials of controlled and defined morphology through rapid and easy-to-execute protocols can significantly accelerate their practical utility in the aforesaid applications. Herein, we report water-induced self-assembly (WISA) to convert a polymorphic TCOB complex (HNBI-B, derived from a 2-(2′-hydroxy-naphthyl)-benzimidazole precursor) into two unique nanomorphologies viz. nanodiscoids (NDs) and fluorescent microtubes with hexagonal cross-sections (HMTs). Detailed electron microscopic investigations revealed that oriented assembly and fusion of the initially formed NDs yield the blue emissive HMTs (SSQY = 26.7%) that exhibited highly promising photophysical behaviour. For example, the HMTs outperformed all the crystal polymorphs of HNBI-B obtained from CHCl3, EtOAc and MeOH in emissivity and also exhibited superior waveguide behaviour, with a much lower optical loss coefficient α′ = 1.692 dB mm−1 compared to the rod-shaped microcrystals of HNBI-B obtained from MeOH (α′ = 1.853 dB mm−1). Thus, this work reports rapid access to high performance optical nanomaterials through WISA, opening new avenues for creating useful nanomaterial morphologies with superior optical performance.

Graphical abstract: Luminescent hexagonal microtubes prepared through water-induced self-assembly of a polymorphic organoboron compound: formation mechanism and waveguide behaviour

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 jun 2023
Accepted
07 ago 2023
First published
08 ago 2023

Nanoscale, 2023,15, 14380-14387

Luminescent hexagonal microtubes prepared through water-induced self-assembly of a polymorphic organoboron compound: formation mechanism and waveguide behaviour

P. A. Gaikwad, P. Samadder, S. Som, D. Chopra, P. P. Neelakandan and A. Srivastava, Nanoscale, 2023, 15, 14380 DOI: 10.1039/D3NR02903D

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