View/Open - POLITesi - Politecnico di Milano
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View/Open - POLITesi - Politecnico di Milano
POLITECNICO DI MILANO Tesi di Dottorato di FRANCISCO FERNANDEZ PALACIO Matricola 802404 DIPARTIMENTO DI CHIMICA, MATERIALI E INGEGNERIA CHIMICA “Giulio Natta” DESIGN AND APPLICATIONS OF HALOGEN-BONDED RESPONSIVE MATERIALS Dottorato di Ricerca in Chimica Industriale e Ingegneria Chimica (CII) XXVIII cicle Coordinatore: Prof. Tiziano Faravelli 2012 - 2015 Tutor: Prof. Luca Lietti Supervisor: Prof. Pierangelo Metrangolo To my parents, Esther and Carlos. To my brother Pablo. A mis padres Esther y Carlos. A mi hermano Pablo. 2 Acknowledgements. Thanks to everyone who has supported me throughout my doctoral studies over these three years. A very special thanks to the most important person, Priscilla. ¿Qué te voy a decir? 3 List of Publications Manuscripts in preparation “Zinc(II) coordination networks decorated with azobenzene halogen bonding donors” Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Marco Saccone, Luca Catalano, Tullio Pilati, Giancarlo Terraneo, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Giuseppe Resnati Ready for publication, intention to submit to CrystEngComm “Photoinduced phase transitions in halogen-bonded liquid crystals” Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Mikko Poutanen, Marco Saccone, Antti Siiskonen, Giancarlo Terraneo, Giuseppe Resnati, Olli Ikkala, Pierangelo Metrangolo and Arri Priimagi. Ready for publication, intention to submit to Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. “Halogen bond-directed nanostructuring of block copolymers” Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Roberto Milani, Marco Saccone, Alessandro Luzio, Gabriella Cavallo, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Arri Priimagi, and Olli Ikkala Ready for publication, intention to submit to J. Am. Chem. Soc. “Halogen bond in ionic liquid crystals” Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Gabriella Cavallo, Giancarlo Terraneo, Marco Saccone, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Arri Priimagi. “Halogen bonding in Molecular Clips Co-Crystal with I2” Luca Catalano, Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Giancarlo Terraneo, Lyle Isaacs, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo Ready for publication, intention to submit to CrystEngComm. 4 Conferences “Photoinduced Phase Transitions in Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals” (Presenting Author) F. Fernandez-Palacio, M. Poutanen, M. Saccone, G. Terraneo, A. Siiskonen, G. Resnati, P. Metrangolo, A. Priimagi. Abstract and Poster RSC Macrocylic and Supramolecular Chemistry Group. Durham (United Kingdom) December, 2015 “Zn(II) Coordination Networks based on an Azobenzene-containing Halogen Bond-Donor Ligand” (Presenting Author) F. Fernandez-Palacio, M. Saccone, L. Catalano, T. Pilati, G. Terraneo, G. Resnati, P. Metrangolo. Abstract and Poster RSC Macrocylic and Supramolecular Chemistry Group. Durham (United Kingdom) December, 2015 “Fast and Efficient Photoinduced Phase Transitions in Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals” (Presenting Author) Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Mikko Poutanen, Marco Saccone, Giancarlo Terraneo, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Giuseppe Resnati, Arri Priimagi. Abstract and Poster. POSTER PRIZE, by Crystal Growth and Design 2nd ICSU/IUPAC Workshop on Crystal Engineering. Como (Italy) August-September 2015 “Zinc(II) Coordination Networks based on an Azobenzene-containing HalogenBond Donor Ligand” (Presenting Author) Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Marco Saccone, Tullio Pilati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Giuseppe Resnati Abstract and Poster 2nd ICSU/IUPAC Workshop on Crystal Engineering. Como (Italy) August-September 2015 5 “Halogen-Bond Driven Self-Assembly of Borromean Systems” (Co-Author) Gabriella Cavallo, Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Vijith Kumar, Frank Meyer, Tullio Pilati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Giuseppe Resnati, Giancarlo Terraneo Abstract and Poster 2nd ICSU/IUPAC Workshop on Crystal Engineering. Como (Italy) August-September 2015 “Self-Assembly of Photo-Switchable Fluorinated Liquid Crystals through Halogen Bonding” (Presenting Author) Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Marco Saccone, Mikko Poutanen, Tullio Pilati, Gabriella Cavallo, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Arri Priimagi. Oral Presentation 21st International Symposium on Fluorine Chemistry and 6th International Symposium In Fluorous Technologies. Como (Italy) August 2015 “Photoinduced Phase Transitions in Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals” (Presenting Author) Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Mikko Poutanen, Marco Saccone, Tullio Pilati, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Arri Priimagi. Abstract and Poster 10th The International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry. Strasbourg (France) June, 2015 “Tunable halogen-bonded responsive systems: A closer look at solid state” (CoAuthor) Giancarlo Terraneo, Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Gabriella Cavallo, Valentina Dichiarante, Marco Saccone, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Arri Priimagi. Poster Gordon Research Conference. Artificial Molecular Switches & Motors. Easton, Massachusetts, (United States) June, 2015 6 “Photoinduced Phase Transitions in Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals” (CoAuthor) Mikko Poutanen, Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Marco Saccone, Tullio Pilati, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Arri Priimagi. Poster Gordon Research Conference. Artificial Molecular Switches & Motors. Easton, Massachusetts, (United States) June, 2015 “Halogen-Bonded Photoresponsive Liquid Crystals” (Co-Author) Marco Saccone, Francisco Fernandez-Palacio, Mikko Poutanen, Tullio Pilati, Giuseppe Resnati, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Arri Priimagi. Abstract and Poster Gordon Research Conference. Self-Assembly and Supramolecular Chemistry. Lucca (Italy) May, 2015 “Borromean Systems via Anion Driven Self-assembly: Topology Invariance and Metric Tuning on Anion Change” (Presenting Author) F. Fernandez-Palacio, F. Meyer, T. Pilati, P. Metrangolo, G. Resnati Abstract and Poster First International symposium on Halogen Bonding. Porto Cesareo (Italy) June, 2014 “Organic frameworks formed via hydrogen and halogen bonding orthogonal selfassembly.” (Presenting Author) F. Fernandez-Palacio, L. Colombo, J. Martí-Rujas, G. Terraneo, T. Pilati, P. Metrangolo, G. Resnati. Abstract and Poster Past, Present, and Future of Crystallography@Politecnico di Milano. Milan (Italy) July, 2013 7 Index Index of figures 11 Index of tables 16 State of the art 17 1. Introduction 1.1. What is Halogen Bonding? 18 18 1.1.1. Halogen Bonding: History 21 1.1.2. Halogen Bonding in Supramolecular Chemistry 22 1.2. Responsive materials 24 1.2.1. Photoresponsive materials 24 1.2.2. Azobenzene system 25 1.2.3. Responsive does not only mean Photo- 26 1.3. Liquid Crystals 27 1.3.1. Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals 31 1.3.2. Photoresponsive Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals 32 1.3.3. Ionic Liquid Crystals 33 1.4. Metal Organic Frameworks 35 1.4.1. Photoswitchable Metal Organic Frameworks 1.5. Block Co-Polymers 36 39 8 2. Neutral and Ionic Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals 45 2.1. Objectives 45 2.2. Materials 48 2.3. Results and discussion 50 2.3.1. Structural analysis 50 2.3.2. Mesophase characterization 54 2.3.3. Photochemical studies 57 2.4. Experimental part 63 2.4.1. General procedure for the synthesis of AZO molecules 63 2.4.2. Crystal structure determination 64 2.5. Conclusions 68 2.6. Halogen-bonded ionic liquid crystals 69 2.6.1. Objectives 69 2.6.2. Materials, results and discussion 69 2.6.3. Conductivity studies 73 2.6.4. Conclusions 76 3. Metal Organic Frameworks 77 3.1. Objectives 77 3.2. Materials 80 3.3. Results and discussion 81 3.3.1. {[Zn(1)(Py)2](2-propanol)}n (3) 81 3.3.2. {[Zn(1)2(4,4’-bipyridyl)2](DMF)2}n (4) 83 3.3.3. {[Zn(2)(1,2-di(4-pyridyl)ethylene](DMF)1.81}n (5) 85 3.3.4. Photochemical studies 86 3.4. Experimental part 88 3.4.1. Synthesis of AZO molecules 88 3.4.2. Synthesis of MOFs 89 3.5. Conclusions 91 9 4. Block Co-Polymers 92 4.1. Objectives 92 4.2. Materials 94 4.3. Results and discussion 96 4.4. Experimental part 106 4.4.1. Preparation of samples for AFM 106 4.4.2. Removal of DIPFO in the complex 106 4.4.3. Preparation of samples for IR 106 4.4.4. Preparation of samples for TGA 107 4.4.5. Metalation 107 4.5. Conclusions 108 General conclusions and future perspectives 109 References and notes 111 10 Index of figures Figure 1. General scheme for the formation of halogen bonds. Y is a carbon, nitrogen or halogen atom, X is the electrophilic halogen atom (XB donor, Lewis acid) and D is a donor of electron density (XB acceptor, Lewis base). ........... 18 Figure 2. Molecular electrostatic potential, in Hartrees, mapped on the 0.001 electrons Bohr-3 isodensity surface. Color code: positive electrostatic potential in red and negative electrostatic potential in blue11 .................................................... 20 Figure 3. Photoisomerization of trans azobenzene to cis azobenzene and viceversa. .............................................................................................................. 25 Figure 4. Examples of calamitic mesogens.12 ............................................................ 28 Figure 5. Smectic phases, showing layered structure: (left) Smectic A, and (right) Smectic C (tilted). ............................................................................................ 29 Figure 6. On the left Smectic phase. On the right Nematic phase. On the top schematic views of the different phases. On the bottom, POM images for the two phases........................................................................................................................... 29 Figure 7. Examples of discotic liquid crystals.12 ........................................................ 30 Figure 8. The three kinds of bent-core liquid crystals................................................ 31 Figure 9. First example of Liquid Crystal formed through Halogen Bonding.71 ....... 32 Figure 10. Simple scheme of Metal Organic Framework Synthesis. ......................... 35 Figure 11. The azobenzene forming the MOF structure can be switched from the trans to the cis state by UV light (ν1) and vice versa by visible light (ν2).98 .............. 37 Figure 12. Structure of the azobenzene-containing linkers and MOFs.104 ................. 38 Figure 13. Schematic representation of supramolecular assembly formation through hydrogen bonding between the P4VP block of PS-b-P4VP copolymer and any halogen-bond donor molecule. ...................................................................... 40 Figure 14. Mean-field prediction of the thermodynamic equilibrium phase structures for conformationally symmetric diblock melts. fA is the volume fraction. ........................................................................................................................ 40 11 Figure 15. A theoretical phase diagram (depending on temperature) for a conformationally symmetric block co-polymer melt. ................................................. 41 Figure 16. On the left perpendicular and on the left parallel orientation between cylindrical order and the film. ..................................................................................... 43 Figure 17. Schematic sketch of the fabrication process. ............................................ 43 Figure 18. Photoinduced phase transition of LC-azobenzene mixtures. Tcc refers to the LC-isotropic phase transition temperature of the mixture with the cis form, while Tct refers to that of the mixture with the trans form.134 ...................... 46 Figure 19. The complexes prepared in this study are assembled by halogen bonding between promesogenic stilbazole molecules (left) and photoresponsive halogen-bond donors (right). ....................................................................................... 47 Figure 20. On the left, crystal packing of cis-AZO12. On the right, crystal packing of trans-AZO12.144 ....................................................................................... 51 Figure 21. X-ray spacefill model of the AZO10-ST1 complex showing both the N···I halogen bonding and arene-perfluoroarene quadrupolar interactions.144 .......... 52 Figure 22. The crystal structure of the complex AZO12-ST1 reveals the XB interaction and the segregation of the aliphatic chains from the aromatic cores. ....... 52 Figure 23. Crystal structure of the complex AZO8-ST2.144 ...................................... 53 Figure 24. X-ray Powder diffraction for sample AZO12-ST1. In red calculated, in black simulated. ....................................................................................................... 53 Figure 25. X-ray Powder diffraction for sample AZO10-ST1. In blue calculated, in black simulated. ....................................................................................................... 54 Figure 26. POM images for a typical Nematic phase (left) for the complex AZO8ST8 and Smectic A phase (right) in the complex AZO12-ST8. ................................ 56 Figure 27. Chart of the thermal behavior of the studied complexes. Crystal phase is in blue, Smectic phase in red and Nematic phase in green. All the transitions are reported on heating, with the exception of the AZO12-ST12 complex. .................... 57 Figure 28. The normalized absorbance spectra of the AZOm and STn molecules, represented by AZO10 and ST2, respectively. The figure shows also the 12 photostationary spectra under illumination wavelengths of 365 nm, 395 nm and 457 nm, and the calculated spectrum of the cis-isomer for the AZO10 molecule. ..................................................................................................................... 58 Figure 29. The photoinduced nematic-to-isotropic transition and the reverse transition of AZO10-ST8 observed under POM. ....................................................... 60 Figure 30. On the left the birefringence and absorbance measurements of the photoinduced nematic-to-isotropic transition. On the right the absorbance behavior under different illumination conditions. ....................................................... 61 Figure 31. Transition crystal-to-isotropic liquid of AZO10-ST8 at 95 °C (10 °C below melting point) with 395 nm light. The initial crystal (1) melts into isotropic liquid (2) after ca. 30 s of illumination. The recrystallization (3) occurs through a partial nematic phase formation approximately 3 minutes after the UV light illumination. The recrystallization proceeds as a front due to uneven illumination conditions under the microscope. The end state is fully crystalline material (4) without phase separation. ............................................................................................ 62 Figure 32. Crystal structure of the compounds (left to right, top to bottom): trans-AZO8, trans-AZO10, trans-AZO12 and cis-AZO12.144 ............................... 64 Figure 33. From the top to bottom: Crystal structure of the ST1-AZO12; ST1AZO10 and ST2-AZO8.144 ......................................................................................... 65 Figure 34. The complexes prepared in this study are assembled by halogen bonding between imidazolium iodides “IMIn” (left) and photoresponsive halogen-bond donors AZOm (right). .......................................................................... 69 Figure 35. POM image of the 2AZO12-IMI2 at 70°C (cooling). ............................. 70 Figure 36. DSC of IMI2, AZO12 and 2AZO-IMI2 ................................................. 71 Figure 37. Crystal structure of 2AZO12-IMI12.144 ................................................... 72 Figure 38. Crystal structure of 2-stilbeneC8-IMI10.144 ............................................ 72 Figure 39. Crystal structure of N,N-azo halogen-bond donor and IMI8 iodide.144... 73 Figure 40. On the left IMI12 conductivity. On the right 2AZO12-IMI2 conductivity. ................................................................................................................ 74 13 Figure 41. Comparison between conductivity of 2AZO12-IMI2 and IMI12 .......... 74 Figure 42. On the left compound 1, on the right compound 2 ................................... 78 Figure 43. Organic commercial linkers used in this work. ........................................ 81 Figure 44. On the left the coordination polymer 3, projected along its main axis. On the right projected approximately orthogonal to main axis.144 ..................... 82 Figure 45. A single complete net projected along the a axis, showing the cage that contains two DMF molecules (larger balls).144 .................................................... 83 Figure 46. A single complete net projected along the b axis, where halogen bond (I•••O) is evident.144............................................................................................ 84 Figure 47. Interdigitating of three 2D layers projected along a axis using different colors............................................................................................................. 85 Figure 48. Left: packing view along a showing the bidimensional pipe network containing DMF in Mercury style. Right: the same viewed along c. In all the plots, the DMF is omitted and only one of the disordered conformers is reported, for clarity.144 ...................................................................................................................... 86 Figure 49. Left, UV-vis spectra of 1 before (black curve) and after (coloured curves) irradiation using 457 nm light. Right, time development of the absorbance of 1. .............................................................................................................................. 87 Figure 50. Left, UV-vis spectra of 2 before (black curve) and after (coloured curves) irradiation using 457 nm light. Right, time development of the absorbance of 2. .............................................................................................................................. 87 Figure 51. On the top, a dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the polymer (blank). On the bottom, a dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the polymer plus DIPFO (complex) ...................................................................... 96 Figure 52. A dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the polymer with DIPFO showing tetragonal order. ....................................................................... 97 Figure 53. Distribution parameters of diameter bulk (left) and distance center-tocenter (right) ................................................................................................................ 97 14 Figure 54. A dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the complex at different speeds (from the top to the bottom, 500, 1000 and 2000 rpm respectively) ................................................................................................ 98 Figure 55. TEM images .............................................................................................. 99 Figure 56. SAXS patterns of PS-b-P4VP (trace 1) and PS-b-P4VP(DIPFO) (trace 2) samples prepared by drop casting. .............................................................. 100 Figure 57. Comparison of IR spectrum of DIPFO, PS-b-P4VP and complex ......... 101 Figure 58. Comparison of TGA for PS-b-P4VP, complex and DIPFO. .................. 102 Figure 59. Comparison of Raman spectrum for PS-b-P4VP, complex and DIPFO. ................................................................................................................ 103 Figure 60. A dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images of a thin complex film after washing with ethanol. ................................................................................ 104 Figure 61. ATR-FTIR spectra of PS-b-P4VP, DIPFO and of a thin spin-coated complex film, both as prepared and after ethanol washing. ...................................... 104 Figure 62. AFM topographic micrograph on the left and section profile on the right of gold nanostructures prepared by metalation of the hollow template left after washing the thin complex film in ethanol, and subsequent removal of the polymer template by acetone. .................................................................................... 105 Figure 63. Chart of the size distribution of gold nanodots. ...................................... 105 15 Index of tables Table 1. Thermal data for the LC complexes ............................................................. 55 Table 2. Crystallographic data for the compounds trans-AZO12, trans-AZO10, trans-AZO8 and cis-AZO12 ............................................................. 66 Table 3. Crystallographic data for the complexes AZO12-ST1, AZO10-ST1 and AZO8-ST2. .................................................................................... 67 Table 4. Thermal data for the LC complexes ............................................................. 70 Table 5. Crystallographic data for the complexes 2AZO12-IMI12, 2stilbeneC8-IMI10 and 2N,N-azo-IMI8. .................................................................. 75 Table 6. Crystallographic data for the compounds 3, 4, 5.......................................... 90 16 State of the art From the prehistory, humans have been creating materials with the goal of helping their daily chores. Therefore, knowing the problem, one can design apparatus to overcome common drawbacks and it is particularly attractive to layout materials from smaller things. Applying this concept to chemistry, the design of materials from small molecules and the interaction between them, give us the definition of the “Supramolecular Chemistry”. Recently, Supramolecular Chemistry has been deeply studied for many groups on every side of the world, in which molecules respond to stimuli applied from diverse non-internal sources between two by undergoing different states. reversible The transformations importance of these phenomena rises from the molecules undergoing changes in their noted characteristics (e.g. electronic and topological) and then acting as switching different elements in functional materials. Thus, designing a functional system responding to external stimuli, one can create a material which provides us with predictable response. In the recent years, several studies related to halogen bonding have been developed by numerous groups. The remarkable interest in this non-covalent interaction may find explanation in its properties (specificity, robustness and high directionality), which present more advantages than others non-covalent interactions frequently used in Supramolecular Chemistry. Therefore, highly motivated from the discussion above mentioned, I considered three well known topics in supramolecular chemistry to review the studies developed until now, adding halogen bonding properties in order to improve their characteristics. These topics are responsive Liquid Crystals (LC), Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and block co-polymers. 17 CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1.1. What is Halogen Bonding? Recently, IUPAC has defined Halogen Bonding (XB)1 as “an attractive interaction between an electrophilic region associated with a halogen atom in a molecular entity and a nucleophilic region in another or the same, molecules entity”. To clarify the general scheme Y-X…D, illustrated in figure 1has been introduced2 to define a halogen bond. Figure 1. General scheme for the formation of halogen bonds. Y is a carbon, nitrogen or halogen atom, X is the electrophilic halogen atom (XB donor, Lewis acid) and D is a donor of electron density (XB acceptor, Lewis base).3 18 In this scheme, the Lewis acid X (halogen atom) is covalently bound to Y (carbon, nitrogen or halogen atom) which non-covalently interacts with the Lewis Base D (N, O, S, Se, Cl, Br, I, Halides…). Halogens participating in halogen bonding are iodine (I), bromine (Br), chlorine (Cl) and, rarely,4 fluorine (F). All four halogens act as halogen-bond donors (as proven through theoretical and experimental data) following the general trend: F < Cl < Br < I, with iodine normally forming the strongest interactions since it is most likely polarizable.5 Y can be any atom (e.g., C, N or halogen). Of particular interest is the case where Y is a halogen because it is a dihalogen. Dihalogens (I2, Br2, etc.) tend to form strong halogen bonds.6-7 In the same way, the presence of electron-withdrawing groups (for example fluorine atoms) near the atom covalently bound to the halogen, increases the strength of halogen bond considerably. 8-9-10 In organic halides, the electron density is anisotropically distributed around halogen atoms (as you can see in figure 2) where the molecular electrostatic potential for every halogen atom is represented.11 According to this scheme, it is possible to note that the positive potential along the C-X axis increases on moving from F to I, in the same way as the polarizability of the halogen atom. Therefore, an important area of positive charge is shown for I, while for the F atom, the electrostatic potential remains negative.12 Thus, a negatively charged belt surrounds the smaller halogens element and, indeed, this anisotropic distribution of the electron density makes possible for halogen atoms to work at the same time as XB donors and acceptors. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the positive area increases as the electronwithdrawing effect of the neighboring groups increases and, therefore, theoretical calculations prove it is possible to carefully tune the strength of the halogen bond in a given halocarbon by modifying the substituents on the carbon skeleton. 8-10 19 Figure 2. Molecular electrostatic potential, in Hartrees, mapped on the 0.001 electrons Bohr-3 isodensity surface. Color code: positive electrostatic potential in red and negative electrostatic potential in blue11 The well-localized electron positive region described above, permits to dispose the electron pair of other, or the same, molecule towards the halogen atom, and it plays a crucial role for the orientation of this interaction. For this reason, halogen bonding is markedly directional, and the angle between the atom covalently bound to the halogen, the halogen and the electron rich atom usually approximates to 180°. 2-13 Another important point is that the presence of halogen atoms in a molecule decreases its hydrophilic character. It has been reported that polar solvents have low interaction in the energies and geometries of halogen bond in solution.14 However, since it does not happen with hydrogen bond, halogen bond is considered as a hydrophobic equivalent of the hydrogen bonding. All the benefits of halogen bonding described above, particularly the high directionality, linearity and robustness, have been recognized and much used in crystal engineering,15 medicinal chemistry16 and, more recently, in the design of functional materials.17 Thus, halogen bond is presented as an attracting interaction for supramolecular chemistry. Furthermore, halogen bonding has been used for other applications in different topics as anion recognition,18 polymers,19 nanoparticles,20 catalysis21 among many others. 20 1.1.1. Halogen Bonding: History. In the mid-19th century the first systems involving halogen atoms as electrophilic “sticky” sites in self-organization processes due to NH3.I2 and pyridine-alkyl iodides adducts being isolated, was described.22-23 About sixty years later, Benesi and Hildrebrand24 published a paper where they described the UV-Vis changes that accompany the spontaneous complexation in non-polar solvents of various aromatic hydrocarbons with I2. In the 1950s, Robert S. Mulliken developed a detailed theory of electron donor-acceptor complexes, classifying them as being outer or inner complexes.25-26-27 The Mulliken theory has been used to describe the mechanism through which halogen bond formation occurs. Outer complexes were those in which the intermolecular interaction between the electron donor and acceptor were weak and had very little charge transfer. Inner complexes have extensive charge redistribution. In 1969, Odd Hassel won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Derek H. R. Barton) for “his contributions to the development of the concept of conformation and its applications in chemistry”. These contributions were based on the studies about Xray crystallographic measurements of Br2 complexes with benzene and dioxane in which it was provided evidence that these intermolecular complexes involve close contacts between electron-donor and acceptor molecules (with interatomic separation significantly shorter than the sum of their Van der Waals radii).28-29 Therefore, in his Nobel lecture,30 he highlighted the importance of intermolecular interactions involving halogen atoms to direct supramolecular self-assembly.31 Nowadays, there are many groups around the world working on Halogen Bonding from many different topics. In graphic 1, it is possible to note how the number of papers, which have “halogen bond” as topic, has been raising to reach more than 200 papers in 2014. Therefore, recently, the IUPAC introduced the definition of Halogen Bonding.1 In June 2014, the first “International Symposium On Halogen Bonding” was celebrated. It was held on Porto Cesareo (Italy)32 with almost 21 200 participants. The Second Symposium will be held on Gotherburg (Sweden) in June 2016.33 For all these reasons, I can quote Metrangolo and co-workers2 saying “the halogen bonding concept is still in its infancy” Graphic 1. Number of papers including “halogen bond” in the title. Source: Web of Science 1.1.2. Halogen Bonding in Supramolecular Chemistry. In his Nobel Price Lecture, Professor Jean-Marie Lehn defined Supramolecular Chemistry as “the chemistry of the intermolecular bond, covering the structures and functions of the entities formed by association of two or more chemical species”.34 The forces, which permit to assemble these domains, may vary from strong covalent bonds into every single molecules up to weak interactions, (including electrostatic interactions, ion-dipole interaction, dipole-dipole interaction, hydrogen bonding, halogen bonding…). This allows individual molecules to held together with noncovalent intermolecular forces to form a bigger unit called supramolecule,35 where individuals have its own organization, their stability and tendency to associate or isolate. 22 Therefore, the main advantage of supramolecular chemistry is to provide structures in which the properties are given by the cooperation between the small constituents. Thus, supramolecular chemistry is playing an important role in concepts as molecular self-assembly, host-guest chemistry, folding, molecular recognition, dynamic covalent chemistry.36 In addition, supramolecular chemistry is crucial to the understanding of many biological processes from cell structure to vision which relies on these forces for structure and function. As it was discussed above, the weak interactions play a critical role in the final structure of the supramolecules. In organic molecules, the halogen atoms are usually located at the periphery of them and prone to be involved in intermolecular interactions. For example, halogen bonding is also presented as a functional, effective and reliable interaction to direct intermolecular recognition processes in gas, liquid and solid phases. In fact, in the last decade many examples have been reported using halogen bonding to direct the self-assembly of non-mesomorphic components into supramolecular liquid crystals,37 to afford and tune second-order nonlinear optical responses,38 to control the structural and physical properties of conducting and magnetic molecular materials,39 to separate mixtures of enantiomers and other isomers,40 to exert supramolecular control on the reactivity in the solid state,41 to optimize the binding of ligands in a receptor, molecular folding, and other biopharmacological properties,42 as well as to bind anions in solution and in the solid state.43 One of the most important advantages working with supramolecular structures is to design and predetermine these macro-domains in order to obtain specific properties. This has a great potential for developing useful materials and, in this context, halogen bonding has been deeply studied for self-assembled systems.19-44 23 1.2. Responsive materials 1.2.1. Photoresponsive materials. Several studies on material sciences have been developed, where molecules (or materials) respond to the stimuli of an applied external source by undergoing reversible transformations between two different conformations or isomers.45 The importance of this fact is that molecules undergo changes in their characteristics (e.g. electronic and topological) and can act as switching elements in functional materials.46 Therefore, this relationship among material-answer opens to a plethora of combinations. Particularly, modern lasers are used in order to achieve fast response times and focus on fine-tuned light stimulus of a specific wavelength on localized areas. Photochromism46 is the process by which a large number of compounds, for instance azobenzenes, interconvert between two different isomers when they are stimulated in the absorption spectra and, for this reason, azobenezenes are the most studied molecule that gives photoresponsive properties to the materials. The variation in the electronic structure entails that this materials are useful because of their particular properties in many areas, such as refractive index,47 luminescence,48 electrical conductance49 and optical rotation.50 In this Doctoral Thesis photoresponsive materials designed through halogen bonding will be discussed. This combination is particularly attractive and commonly used in the recent years,37 due to the well-known and above highlighted properties of this interaction as, for example, the high directionality,51 which can enhance the optical performance52 and the ability to tune the interactive strength between the building blocks via single halogen atom mutation at the binding site. 24 1.2.2. Azobenzenes system. Azobenzenes are molecules containing two aromatic rings held together by a nitrogen-nitrogen double bond. Due to the N=N link, they exist in two stereoisomeric forms, trans and cis (Fig. 3). Actually, 'azobenzene' is the term used to refer to the generic molecule, but it is extended to the molecules with different chemical groups which replaced the aromatic hydrogen. Figure 3. Photoisomerization of trans azobenzene to cis azobenzene and viceversa. At room temperature, the trans form is predominant because it is more stable than the cis form due to thermodynamically reasons, mainly because of close proximity of the rings in the latter that leads to steric repulsion. Through the absorption of UV-Vis radiation, trans form can be switched to the cis and the process depends on the wavelength of the absorbed photon and on the transition involved (π → π* for the trans azobenzene). The effect produced on the absorption spectrum on azobenzenes molecules attaching functional groups to the rings has been deeply studied. The wavelengths at which azobenzene isomerization occurs depend on the particular structure of each azomolecule and, for this reason, azobenzenes have been divided into three different classes,53 according to the absorption spectra. The first ones (yellow) are azobenzene type materials, which are electronically and chemically similar to the azobenzene. These compounds show a higher intensity π-π* absorption in the ultraviolet region but low-intensity n-π* absorption in the visible. Aminobenzenes are the second type (orange) and they are characterized by a weak 25 pull-push character because they are ortho- or para- substituted with electron-donor groups and tend to closely spaced n-π* and π-π* bands in the visible. The last ones are the pseudostilbenes molecules (red), which present a particularly hard push-pull character because they are substituted on the 4 and 4’ position by functional groups which are strong electron donors or acceptors and, for this reason, the strong π-π* band is red shifted and overlaps with the n-π* one.54 1.2.3. Responsive does not only mean PhotoIn addition to the photoresponsive materials explained above, many materials can be sensitive to a different number of factors, such as washing solvent, temperature, humidity, pH or the intensity of light and can undergo changes in many different ways, like altering color or transparency, becoming permeable to water or changing shape among others. Therefore, in the last years, many studies also focused on these “changes” in order to design systems which provide an answer required when they are stimulated not only with light. Particularly, as in medical applications, the polymers are often used so that the answer cannot be induced by light and, for this reason, other stimuli, as the change of temperature, have been studied.55 26 1.3. Liquid Crystals The liquid crystalline state is often quoted as the fourth state of matter56-57 because of its ability to form the so-called mesophases. Their properties are intermediate between those of the crystalline solid state and those of the liquid state. Therefore, liquid crystals flow like liquids, but they are anisotropic compounds.58-59 In the late 1880s, liquid crystals were discovered by Friedrich Richard Reinitzer,60 when he was experimenting with cholesteryl benzoate. However, it was one year later when Otto Lehmann defined what liquid crystals are for the first time.61 For almost a hundred years, the interest on liquid crystals remained entirely academic up to the 1970s, when they were used and exploited in flat-panel displays.62 After that moment, several new applications for liquid crystals have been found, such as optical imaging,63 medical applications64 and erasable optical disks65 among many others. Depending on the order of molecules within the liquid crystal phase, we can distinguish several different kinds of them. Therefore, the first classification depends on how the liquid crystal phase is reached. If liquid crystallinity is induced by temperature or solvent they are called thermotropic or lyotropic liquid crystals respectively. For a better understanding, we need to introduce the concept of anisotropy, because it helps us distinguish liquid-crystalline molecules (mesogens) from those that are not liquid crystalline. Anisotropy is the property of being directionally dependent. Isotropy is the opposite because it implies identical properties in all directions. Usually, liquid crystals systems have one axis, which is very different from the other two. When there are one short and two long axes we have disc-like molecules while when there are one long and short axes we have rod-sharped molecules. Attending to their molar mass, liquid crystals can be classified in low molar mass (e.g. non-polymeric) and high molar mass (e.g. polymeric). Only low molecular 27 mass liquid crystals have been studied in this Doctoral Thesis, while the high molecular mass ones will not be consider in the following discussion. Low molar mass liquid crystals are divided into three major categories depending on the kind of molecule which forms the liquid crystal phase (calamitic, discotic and bent-core). Calamitic mesogens is characterized by a rod-shaped rigid core formed by two or more rings and one flexible chain at least (Fig. 4). Figure 4. Examples of calamitic mesogens.12 The liquid crystal phases of calamitic mesogens may be classified into two types: Smectic (Sm) and Nematic (N). In the Smetic phase, molecules are arranged in layers, with the long molecular axis approximately perpendicular to the laminar planes. The only long-range order extends along this axis, with the result that individual layers can slip over each other (in a manner similar to that observed in graphite). Within one layer there is a certain amount of short-range order. Although there are many categories of smectic phases depending on the angle between the layer and the direction of the molecules, in this Doctoral Thesis I will only consider the Smectic A (molecules orthogonal to the layers) and Smectic C (the molecules are tilted) (Fig 5). 28 Figure 5. Smectic phases, showing layered structure: (left) Smectic A, and (right) Smectic C (tilted).66 The Nematic phase is the most disordered of the liquid crystal phases and molecules are aligned in the same direction but are free to randomly drift around, as it similarly happens in an ordinary liquid (Fig. 6). Figure 6. On the left Smectic phase. On the right Nematic phase. On the top schematic views of the different phases.67 On the bottom, POM images for the two phases. 29 On the other hand, discotic liquid crystals are disposed around a fairly flat core structure and are usually surrounded by six or eight peripheral alkyl(oxy) chains (Fig. 7). Calamitics molecules tend to form smectic mesophases whereas discotics molecules self-organize into columnar mesophases. Figure 7. Examples of discotic liquid crystals.12 The third major category is the bent-core (also called banana liquid crystals) and it is characterized by the angle between the two parts of the molecule. Each of these two parts is formed by at least two aromatic rings and, in addition, by one long chain. In some case, one part contains the aromatic rings and another contains the long chain. Despite the fact that constituent molecules of these mesophases are not chiral, they show polar order and chiral superstructures in their LC mesophases. As it is possible to see in figure 8, three types of bent-core liquid crystals are noted. 30 Figure 8. The three kinds of bent-core liquid crystals.68 1.3.1. Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals The use of non-covalent interactions for the induction of liquid-crystalline order is particularly attractive, because it is possible to reach liquid crystal phases by mixing molecules which do not show liquid crystal phase by themselves. Hydrogen bonding has been deeply used in this area.69 For instance, in one of the first cases studied,70 several liquid crystals were formed through hydrogen bonding between alkoxystilbazoles and various substituted phenols where neither component was liquid crystalline. Thus, hydrogen bonding represents an example of a non-covalent intermolecular interaction capable of inducing mesomorphism from nonmesomorphic species. The first example of non-mesomorphic tectons forming liquid-crystal phases induced by halogen bonding was reported in 2004.71 It was demonstrated that liquid crystal phase was reached by mixing 4-alkoxystilbazole and iodopentafluorobenzene, 31 and halogen-bonded interaction was confirmed by X-ray single-crystal. Thermotropic smectic A and nematic phases were detected by microscope (Fig. 9). Figure 9. First example of Liquid Crystal formed through Halogen Bonding.71 In order to compare different halogen-bonded liquid crystals, the nonmesogenic halogen bonding acceptor was also mixed to bromopentafluorobenzene but no evidence was found that the thermal behavior of the free stilbazole changed. As mentioned above, this fact can be explained because the strength of the halogen bonding interaction depends on the polarizability of the halogen atom. Right after these studies, the versatility of halogen bonding in liquid crystals in trimers formed (2:1) between stilbazoles with diiodoperfluoroalkanes72 and diiodotetrafluorobenzene, was also confirmed.73 These were the first studies on a topic which is still in its first years. 1.3.2. Photoresponsive Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals As I anticipated in the introduction, halogen bonding is a high directional noncovalent interaction which shares many features with the much better-known hydrogen bonding.74 In 2002, Ikeda et al.75 have published a seminal work for doped covalent liquid crystals. A photoinduced phase transition in liquid crystals doped with azobenzene derivatives was studied earlier under the polarized microscope. In order to induce the nematic-to-isotropic transition phase, a uniform UV light of wavelength 32 (365 nm) was used. It was assumed that the isotropic phase appears as a microscopic domain, formed around the cis isomer of azobenzene derivative molecules. Their model is based on randomly positioned formation and growth of circularly shaped isotropic domains, characterized by the constant growth rate of their radius during the irradiation. In a paper published in 2012 by Priimagi, Metrangolo, Resnati et al.37 it was demonstrated that liquid crystals assembled by halogen bonding had an unique lightresponsive properties. In particular, they studied the photoaligneament of halogen bonding liquid crystals and the efficiency of surface-relief-grating formation of a complex between a non-mesogenic halogen-bond donor with an azo-group and a nonmesogenic alkoxystilbazole that acts as a halogen boning acceptor. Regarding the photoaligneament, after a film done by spin-coating was irradiated, the absorbance changes demonstrating that the system was alienated perpendicularly to the sample with time. The second thing verified in this paper was the efficient surface-reliefgrating formation of the halogen-bonded supramolecular liquid crystals. Starting with the initial film thickness of 250 nm after irradiation, the depth of the sample was 600 nm increasing the modulation 2.4 times. Recently, Yinjie Chen et al.76 published a study on photoresponsive liquid crystals based on the formation of halogen bonding interaction between azopyridines and molecular iodine and bromine. Although photochemical phase transition was induced by UV irradiation with iodine molecule, no changes were still observed in brominated compounds due to the different polarizability of the halogen atoms. 1.3.3. Ionic Liquid Crystals Ionic liquid crystals (ILC) are a class of liquid-crystalline compounds which contain anions and cations. The ionic character means that some of the properties of the ionic liquid crystals significantly differ from those of conventional liquid crystals. One of the most important features of ionic liquid crystals is the ion conductivity. Another significant characteristic is the ionic interaction that stabilizes lamellar 33 mesophases. In addition, ionic liquid crystals show uncommon mesophases (nematic columnar phase).77 From an application point of view, due to the fact that ionic liquid crystals combine the properties of ionic liquids and liquid crystals, the interest on this topic has been growing in the last years.78-79-80 34 1.4. Metal Organic Frameworks In recent years, the use of metals in crystal engineering has attracted considerable attention and lead to the development of concepts defined by IUPAC, such as coordination polymers81 (CP) and Metal Organic Frameworks (MOF),81-82-83 crystalline materials composed of self-assembled organic ligands and metal cations.84 The understanding of molecular recognition and intermolecular interactions that drives the crystal packing in solids is a hot topic in present-day research in view of the design and synthesis of new materials.85 In this kind of materials, single metal ions or metal clusters are used as rigid nodes, while multidentate organic molecules possessing diverging coordination sites are used as linkers in order to build one, two or three-dimensional architectures (Fig. 10). Figure 10. Simple scheme of Metal Organic Framework Synthesis.86 35 Since a large variety of organic ligands and metal centers can be used for the construction of non-porous and porous networks, the possible combination between them, and in consequence, the number of MOF that are possible to obtain are infinite. Therefore, the features of the metal and organic ligand play a key role in the properties of the final network. Moreover, the periodical arrangement of the atoms in the crystalline structure might introduce additional advantages for specific applications (e.g. an ordered arrangement of identical catalytic sites).87-88-89 For this reason, an important field in the studies of MOFs and CPs is the introduction of different functional groups in order to obtain specific properties. Due to these characteristics, MOFs and CPs are interesting because of their structural and functional tunability which allows plethora of applications in many topics, such as biology and medicine,90 sensor techniques,91 luminescent and magnetic materials,92-93 gas storage and separation94 or even catalysis.95 The synthesis of MOFs is an important field. There are mainly two different techniques used to obtain the crystalline structures. The first one is the hydrothermal reaction96 where the synthesis of single crystal is performed in an apparatus consisting of a steel pressure vessel (autoclave) where a nutrient is supplied along with water. Keeping the volume constant and supplying temperature of ramp, the reaction within the autoclave is developed. The main disadvantage of the method is the impossibility of observing the crystals as they grow. On the other hand, isothermal techniques are based on growing slowly (even for weeks) single crystals from a hot solution. 1.4.1. Photoswitchable Metal Organic Frameworks As explained above, Metal Organic Frameworks are usually pre-designed in order to obtain specific properties that permit us to use them for many applications. In recent years, MOFs have been pre-designed introducing photoswitchable molecules (Fig. 11) which provide the system with photoresponsive properties.97 Some of these 36 studies are oriented to demonstrate the remote-controlled release of guest molecules thanks to the photoswitching of the azobenzene in the MOF structure.98-99 On the other hand, the goal of any other studies is to demonstrate how the adsorption capacity of gas molecules, for example carbon dioxide, can be changed.100-101-102-103 Figure 11. The azobenzene forming the MOF structure can be switched from the trans to the cis state by UV light (ν1) and vice versa by visible light (ν2).98 Recently an interesting work has been published104 where two similar MOFs have been compared as both “a priori” photoswitchables. As it is possible to see in figure 12, both MOFs are similar in their structure. The first one is formed by copper which is the metal center, to which both 4,4’-bipyridyl and 3-azobenzene-4,4biphenyldicarboxylic as photoswitchable molecule, are linked. Instead, the photoswitchable molecule on the second MOF is the 3-azobenzene-4,4-bipyridine which is also linked to the copper atoms. As shown in figure 12, both azobenzenes can be switched to the bent cis state by UV light. The azobenezenes present a reversible behavior. They go back to trans state when they are irradiated with visible light. However, when these azobenzenes are placed on the MOF, the behavior is different. While in MOF a) the photoisomerizations is enabled, the photoisomerization in MOF b) is sterically hindered. 37 Figure 12. Structure of the azobenzene-containing linkers and MOFs.104 38 1.5. Block Co-polymers A polymer is a large molecule composed of many repeated subunits (monomers). In 1963 Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta, Professor from the Politecnico di Milano, were awarded with the Nobel Prize for "for their discoveries in the field of the chemistry and technology of high polymers".105 After this moment, a whole new topic on polymers has been opened and therefore, due to their broad range of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play an essential role in everyday life. When two or more different of these monomers are united together to polymerize, their result is called co-polymer. Of particular interest is a kind of copolymer called block co-polymer, which are made up of blocks of different polymerized monomers. Since the term polymer represents an entered world, only block co-polymers will be discussed in this Doctoral Thesis, along with their applications. I focused my studies on the ability of block co-polymers which remain one of the most extensively studied and utilized classes of macromolecules,106 due to their high capacity to induce microphase separation, which has generated significant interest in their application.107 Therefore, the formation of ultrathin films of predetermined morphology with well-defined order and well-known dimensions has been a hot-topic in recent years. Particularly interesting is the combination of these organic self-assembled molecules with inorganic components having electronic properties because it permits the fabrication of electronic materials.108 Additionally, they may be used for microfiltration, but they are also widely used as templates to obtain functional materials.109 For instance, phase separation is generated by binding (usually one) polymer, which forms the co-polymer block, with small molecule surfactants. Generally, the most widely studied polymer is poly(4-vinylpyridine-co-styrene)110-111 because of its facility to form hydrogen bonding through its pyridine (Fig. 13). In fact, there are 39 many examples in literature using hydrogen bonding to achieve phase separation.112113-114 Phase separation leads to multiscale structured assemblies with features at length scales of the order of ten to hundred nanometres.115-116 Figure 13. Schematic representation of supramolecular assembly formation through hydrogen bonding between the P4VP block of PS-b-P4VP copolymer and any halogen-bond donor molecule. These co-polymers tend to self-assembly in many different possible ways. Depending on the organization and the volume fraction of the space occupied (or the free space) we can mainly distinguish four categories: spheres (s), cylinders (c), bicontinous cubic (g) and lamellae (l) as is reported in figure 14.117 Figure 14. Mean-field prediction of the thermodynamic equilibrium phase structures for conformationally symmetric diblock melts. fA is the volume fraction.118 40 Nevertheless, to exploit these morphologies, it is essential to know and understand the control factors and the transitions between them. For instance, depending on the Flory–Huggins interaction parameter between the monomer units, the length of the block copolymers (N) and the composition (f), different structures are formed due to the balancing of the enthalpic interfacial energy between the blocks and the entropic chain stretching energy of the individual blocks. Figure 15. A theoretical phase diagram (depending on temperature) for a conformationally symmetric block co-polymer melt.119 The deposition of the sample in the substrate plays a critical role in the ordering of block co-polymers thin films.120 Therefore, there are mainly two methodologies to deposit the sample: spin-coating and drop-cast. The first one, a polymer solution with the linker molecule, is deposited on a substrate undergoing rapid rotation. The centrifugal forces play a critical role and the solution flows off the rotating substrate forming a uniform film while simultaneously evaporating and, consequently, when the solvent is completely evaporated the thin film is formed. The second one consists of dropping a low volume of the solution containing both the polymer and the linker and, after the evaporation of the solvent, thin film is obtained. In this case, the process is far less violent in comparison to the previous one. In addition, less volatile solvents are conventionally more utilized than chloroform. In 41 this methodology the formation of the polymer film allows the solvent to evaporate more slowly.121 After the deposition, in the case that order is not detected (something very common), it is possible to create (or improve) order through the annealing. Annealing of the sample is obtained through high temperature or by using vapors of another (or the same) solvent. In the first case, the temperature has a remarkable influence on the final arrangement of the block co-polymer. Indeed, as shown in figure 15 (in the diagram of the different phases) it was emphasized that every temperature has a different influence in the final disposition. This change in the order has a particular importance when you are closed to the glass transition temperature of the polymer. On the second hand, solvent annealing is used to improve the order in the films but, unfortunately, the thin film behavior becomes even more complicated in comparison to the temperature annealing. However, the main advantages of using solvent annealing are that there is no danger for polymer degradation and the time required to achieve the order is remarkably reduced.122 In some cases, the long range order can even be greatly improved.123 Unfortunately, there are many more important aspects to consider such as, for instance, the solvent evaporation rate, the selectivity of the solvent and the vapor pressure. In fact, depending on the speed at which the solvent evaporates, the final morphology can change dramatically. For example, by using a fast solvent evaporation, kinetically (non-equilibrium) non-ordered structures are favored while, with a slow solvent evaporation, the thermodynamic equilibrium is reached and the structures are more ordered.124 Therefore, the election of the solvent used highly contributes to the final result and, for example, it is possible to reach nonthermodynamic equilibrium structures but well ordered. Since we are studying polymers formed by more than one component, it is obvious that solvents do not equally interact with both constituents. Therefore, by changing the composition of the solvents, the interaction with the block co-polymer will be more (or less) efficient and, consequently, it is possible, for instance, to change the system morphology from lamellar to cylindrical to spherical....125 42 Certainly, the interaction between the surface where the sample is placed and the thickness of the sample is highly important in the final structuration of the polymer. Usually, these films are parallel alienated to the surface,126 but actually, looking from an applicative point of view (fabrication of nanomaterials), the most attractive orientation is the perpendicular one (Fig. 16). Indeed, many forms on how to redirect the preferred microdomain orientation have been reported,127 such as, for example, electric fields, solvent interactions and by using rough substrates.128 Figure 16. On the left perpendicular and on the left parallel orientation between cylindrical order and the film. The perpendicular orientation is the most attractive one since it is possible to pre-design a space made of cylinders, which can work as templates for the creation of films of ordered nanoparticles. Therefore, the controlled incorporation of nanoparticles into self-assembled block copolymers has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years.129-130 Additionally, this methodology is a well-known way to improve the properties of materials at the nanometer scale. Figure 17. Schematic sketch of the fabrication process.131 43 For a better understanding of the process, in figure 17 the fabrication process is schematically shown. As widely highlighted in this discussion, the first important point is to obtain perpendicular cylinders. Thus, in the second step it is possible to deposit pre-synthesized inorganic nanoparticles selectivity into the P4VP domains. The red part in the representation of the polymer concerns the pyridine domains, which obviously have interaction with the deposited nanoparticles. When these inorganic materials have reached the organization, the last step of the process is to remove the polymer used as template. There are mainly three methodologies to remove the polymer. The first one is by heating the sample in air furnace at high temperature (pyrolysis)132 the second one is by oxygen plasma etching,133 and the last one is by washing the sample with an organic solvent. These methodologies leave behind arrays of metallic nanodots on the surface. 44 CHAPTER 2 Neutral and Ionic Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals 2.1. Objectives Based on the works already mentioned in the introduction,37-72-75-76 we considered that the recently developed supramolecular Low-Molecular Weight Liquid Crystalline Actuators (LMWLCA) have not been investigated in depth yet. However, it has been demonstrated134 that the main option to assemble these LMWLCA consists of doping a fraction of azobenzene molecules in nematic liquid crystals as 4pentyl-4’-cyanobiphenyl. Therefore, in order to destroy the liquid crystal alignment by inducing a transition liquid crystal-to-isotropic phase, the isomerization of small quantity of azobenzene molecules from the trans to cis is enough. This change on even small amount of it, permits the propagation of isotropic phase on the whole sample thought an efficient cooperative molecular motions (Fig. 18). 45 Figure 18. Photoinduced phase transition of LC-azobenzene mixtures. Tcc refers to the LC-isotropic phase transition temperature of the mixture with the cis form, while Tct refers to that of the mixture with the trans form.134 Unfortunately, this approach mainly presents two problems. On the first hand, sometimes the correspondent cis-azobeneze studied presents problems in the solubility on the liquid crystal phase causing phase separation on the sample. To overcome this problem, the azobenzene quantity should be reduced.135 On the other hand, the nematic-to-isotropic phase transition cannot be induced at an arbitrary temperature in the whole nematic phase range of the mixture, as it is shown in figure 18. The phase transition can be induced only at temperatures higher than the phase transition temperature of the mixture with the azobenzene-derivative fully as cisisomer. It was considered that the versatility of the supramolecular approach to LMWLCAs should provide the possibility to overcome the problems described above. In order to assemble the molecules which form our tectons, halogen bonding was chosen because, as I anticipated many times in this Doctoral Thesis, it has been proven particularly reliable and robust in self-assembly. The key of this work136 was to assemble dimeric liquid crystals where the photoactive alkoxyazobenzene molecule containing an iodoperfluoroarene ring acting as the halogen-bond donor moiety with the halogen bond acceptor is a 4,4’alkoxystilbazole derivative. Therefore, three photoresponsive halogen bond137 donors, 46 synthetized for the first time in this research project, and five promesogenic stilbazole molecules were used. Thus, in this work, fifteen new supramolecular liquid crystals are presented. Their general scheme is depicted in figure 19. Figure 19. The complexes prepared in this study are assembled by halogen bonding between promesogenic stilbazole molecules (left) and photoresponsive halogen-bond donors (right). These compounds were labeled as STn and AZOm, where n and m are the numbers of carbon atoms in the alkyl chain. All the liquid crystals described in this work feature enantiotropic mesophases, except for the complex with the longest alkyl chain, which exhibited a monotropic LC phase. 47 2.2. Materials The starting materials were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. Commercial HPLCgrade solvents were used without further purification, except for acetonitrile, used as solvent for the synthesis of azobenzenes, which was dried over CaH 2 and distilled prior use. 1H, 13 C and 19 F NMR spectra were recorded at room temperature on a Bruker AV 400 or AV500 spectrometer, using CDCl3 as solvent. 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopy chemical shifts were referenced to tetramethylsilane (TMS) using residual proton or carbon impurities of the deuterated solvents as standard reference, while 19 F NMR spectroscopy chemical shifts were referenced to an internal CFCl 3 standard. The LC textures were studied with a Leica DM2700M polarized light optical microscope equipped with a Linkam Scientific LTS 350 heating stage and a Canon EOS 6D camera. The melting points were also determined on a Reichert instrument by observing the melting process through an optical microscope. The attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectra were obtained using a Nicolet Nexus FTIR spectrometer. The values, given in wave numbers, were rounded to 1 cm-1 using automatic peak assignment. Mass spectra were recorded on a Bruker Esquire 3000 PLUS. X-ray powder diffraction experiments were carried out on a Bruker D8 Advance diffractometer operating in reflection mode with Gemonochromated Cu Kα radiation (λ=1.5406 Å) and a linear position-sensitive detector. Powder X-ray diffraction data were recorded at ambient temperature, with a 2θ range of 5−40°, a step size 0.016°, and exposure time of 1.5 s per step. The photoresponsivity in the liquid crystal phase was studied in planar liquid crystal cells with a gap of 2 μm. The temperature control was done with Linkam Scientific LTS 350 heating stage, and the spectra were measured with USB 2000+ spectrometer (Ocean Optics, Inc.) with a deuterium-halogen light source. The birefringence data was measured using 820 nm wavelength laser and crossed 48 polarizers. The sample was placed in between the polarizers at a 45° angle, and the laser intensity was measured with a photodiode. The illumination of the samples was done with 365 nm and 395 nm high power LEDs (Thorlabs), equipped with 10 nm, OD 4.0, band pass filters (Edmund Optics), or then with a 457 nm laser. 49 2.3. Results and discussion 2.3.1. Structural analysis In order to demonstrate the halogen bonding interaction in our complexes, single crystals of some combinations were grown. In addition, the single crystals of the three new trans-azobenzenes (trans-AZO8, trans-AZO10 and trans-AZO12) and the isomer cis-AZO12 were also obtained (Fig. 20). For this reason, I will take the opportunity to describe all these single crystals structures in detail in order to determinate, besides the halogen bonding, which interactions are involved in the crystal packing. It is remarkably interesting to compare both isomers cis- and trans- of the AZO12. Therefore, studying the crystal packing of cis-AZO12, it is possible to conclude that the nitrogen lone pairs plays a crucial role in the packing, since it makes more accessible to interact with Lewis acids, transforming the azo unit in a good halogen-bond acceptor, as shown in figure 20. The distance between the iodine and the nitrogen of the neighbor molecule is 2.995 Å and C-I···N angle 170.2°. The overall crystal packing nicely illustrates strong segregation between aromatic and aliphatic parts of the molecule. The aromatic moieties of cis-AZO12 interact to form a columnar arrangement, running through the crystallographic c-axis, thanks to the tilted-off set stacking interactions occurring between the fluorinated surfaces. On the other hand, the crystal structure of trans-AZO12 allows to determinate that halogen bonding is not detected and, in addition, there is not a very clear segregation between the aliphatic and aromatic parts. However, a weak interaction between perfluoroarene-perfluoroarene systems is shown, as you can also see in figure 20 (distance between centroids 4.693 Å). Additionally, weak F···H contacts occur between neighboring molecules. 50 Figure 20. On the left, crystal packing of cis-AZO12. On the right, crystal packing of transAZO12.144 Even though fifteen combinations were studied on this work, only three of them leave us single crystals which were able to be analyzed by X-ray diffraction. These combinations are AZO10-ST1, AZO12-ST1 and AZO8-ST2. The X-ray diffraction for the complex AZO10-ST1 mainly shows two different kinds of interactions, being the first one halogen bonding N···I-C with a distance N···I of 2.792 Å and C-I···N angle of approximately 174.3°. These numbers are well in line with those previously reported for azobenzene-methoxystilbazole complexes138 and reflect the high linearity of the halo structures.139 The second force of the crystal packing is the areneperfluoroarene quadrupolar interaction between neighboring AZO10 molecules in different planes, as you can see in figure 21. The observed distance between the centroids of the fluorinated and non-fluorinated rings is 3.698 Å, very close to that of the benzene-hexafluorobenzene dimer.140 These interactions are strong (6.1 kcal mol-1 for the benzene hexafluorobenzene adduct)141 and very useful in crystal engineering,142 and in liquid-crystal self-assembly.143 51 Figure 21. X-ray spacefill model of the AZO10-ST1 complex showing both the N···I halogen bonding and arene-perfluoroarene quadrupolar interactions.144 The crystal structure of the complex AZO12-ST1 shows an halogen bonding between iodine atom of the perfluorinated azo molecule and the pyridine nitrogen of the stilbazole, with a distance N···I of 2.817 Å and C-I···N angle of approximately 174.5°, very close to the distance already reported for AZO10-ST1. In addition, since the alkyl chains are two alkyl units longer than the previous ones, segregation is detected between them forming layers with a length of 31 Å (Fig. 22). Although the skeleton is not so different, no aromatic interactions between arenes have been detected. Figure 22. The crystal structure of the complex AZO12-ST1 reveals the XB interaction and the segregation of the aliphatic chains from the aromatic cores.144 The third case studied, (AZO8-ST2) shows the smaller distance N···I (2.771 Å) with an angle approximately 178.6°. Also, in this case, no aromatic interactions between arene and perfluoroarene rings have been shown. However, several weak C52 H aliphatic and C-H aromatic contacts also contribute to the crystal packing of our complexes. Figure 23. Crystal structure of the complex AZO8-ST2.144 Powder X-ray diffraction analysis of the samples was performed in order to demonstrate that the stoichiometry of the complex determined by single crystal is also representative of the entire bulk sample (Fig. 24 and Fig. 25). Figure 24. X-ray Powder diffraction for sample AZO12-ST1. In red calculated, in black simulated. 53 Figure 25. X-ray Powder diffraction for sample AZO10-ST1. In blue calculated, in black simulated. 2.3.2. Mesophase Characterization I want to underline that the starting compounds used in this work do not show liquid crystal phase at any temperature and, that all the temperature transitions presented here, have been checked by both Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Polarized Optical Microscopy (POM). In order to properly determinate the mesophase by POM, planar cells with a thickness of 10 µm were used. In the cases where it was possible, single crystals of the complexes grown from solution were used for the mesophase analysis. In the other cases, the complexes were prepared by melting together equimolar amounts of the halogen-bond donor and acceptor. In table 1 the temperature transitions are shown of every sample checked by POM and confirmed by DSC, which give us the energy implicated in. Metrangolo et al.145 have already reported a similar table. 54 Complex AZO12-ST12 AZO12-ST8 AZO12-ST4 AZO12-ST2 AZO12-ST1 AZO10-ST12 AZO10-ST8 AZO10-ST4 AZO10-ST2 AZO10-ST1 AZO8-ST12 AZO8-ST8 AZO8-ST4 AZO8-ST2 AZO8-ST1 Transition T [oC] ∆H[kJ/mol] I-N N-SmA SmA-Cr Cr-SmA SmA-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-SmA SmA-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-SmA SmA-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I Cr-N N-I (110.5) (101) (90.5) 97.1 108 114 98.2 117.8 90.4 122.2 80.7 112.6 100.2 107 114.6 95.5 115.5 98.5 120.4 101.5 125.3 94 124.3 92.5 108.6 112.3 85.5 115 90.1 125 86.2 125 87.2 121 14 1 89.1 49.8 5.3 46.4 7.8 61.2 8.7 40.2 3.8 51.5 5.5 59.1 9 53.4 8 58.4 10.1 69 6.7 29.9 0.3 4.9 41.8 7.9 48.1 7.3 40.9 7 32.9 5.8 Table 1. Thermal data for the LC complexes 55 Only with the exception of the complex formed by the longest chains, which it was observed as monotropic liquid crystal phase, all the complexes feature enantiotropic liquid crystal phases. As it is possible to see in table 1, all the complexes present nematic phase, identified by the presence of schlieren texture (Fig. 26). Smectic A phase was detected in four cases (AZO12-ST12, AZO12-ST8, AZO10-ST12, AZO8-ST12). These combinations correspond to the complexes, of which the sum of the number of carbons of the both chains is equal, or even more than twenty. This is well in line with the observation that long alkyl chains tend to present smectic phase.146-147 Figure 26. POM images for a typical Nematic phase (left) for the complex AZO8-ST8 and Smectic A phase (right) in the complex AZO12-ST8. In figure 27 a graphic with the thermal behavior of the complexes studied is reported. If we examine the series by fixing the alkyl chain of the AZO molecule, we immediately see that the nematic phase range increases by decreasing the alkyl chain length of the STn molecule, reaches a maximum at n(ST)=2 and remains almost constant for n=1. As it was anticipated in the previous paragraph, this proves that long alkyl chains in the stilbazole molecules tend to destabilize the nematic phase which is favored with short alkyl chains. 56 Figure 27. Chart of the thermal behavior of the studied complexes. Crystal phase is in blue, Smectic phase in red and Nematic phase in green. All the transitions are reported on heating, with the exception of the AZO12-ST12 complex. 2.3.3. Photochemical studies Firstly, the cis-to-trans isomerization of every azobenzene by means of polarized optical spectroscopy in solution at room temperature and then in complexes in the liquid crystal phases was studied. Regarding the photochemical properties, the discussion is restricted to AZO10 because the three azobenzene studied shown similar spectra and isomerization behavior. In figure 28, the absorption spectra of the AZOm molecules measured from dilute (10-5 M) DMF solution is reported. The molecules are more stable in trans-conformation in thermal equilibrium but it is possible to obtain cis-conformation upon irradiation with UV light. In figure 28 we 57 can also see the different states upon illumination with 365 nm, 395 nm and 457 nm, showing that isomerization highly depends on the illumination wavelength. Based on the Fischer’s method148 that permits us to calculate the spectrum of the cis-isomer, the cis-fractions were estimated to be respectively 88%, 84% and 24%. Moreover, the absorbance spectra for the stilbazole, was studied (fig. 28). It is important to note that the stilbazole spectrum partially overlaps with the AZOm absorption but, upon illumination with light wavelengths above 395 nm, the STn molecules do not show isomerization. Therefore, for the following discussion of this chapter, illumination with light wavelengths of 395 nm will be use. Figure 28. The normalized absorbance spectra of the AZOm and STn molecules, represented by AZO10 and ST2, respectively. The figure shows also the photostationary spectra under illumination wavelengths of 365 nm, 395 nm and 457 nm, and the calculated spectrum of the cis-isomer for the AZO10 molecule. Particularly interesting is the study of the cis-state of the azobenzenes because of the unusually long life-time, equal to 13 days at 20°C. It is so stabile that cisconformation of AZO12 was crystallized and single crystal determined through Xray diffraction, as it was reported in the structural discussion. This fact is well in line 58 with the results published by Bleger et al.,149 where it was demonstrated that the ofluorination of azobenzene remarkably stabilizes the half-life of the cis-isomer. After the studies on the photochemical properties of our molecules, it is now time to study the behavior of these dyes in the liquid crystal phase. Therefore, one of the main points of this work is the study of the isothermal nematic-to-isotropic transition in the supramolecular liquid crystalline phase through the photoresponsivity of the halogen-bond donor molecules. In order to ensure a complete and very detailed study of the mesophases, oriented planar (2 µm) liquid crystal cells were used. Due to the difference in the chemical environment, cooperative effects and ordered nature of the liquid crystal phases, also the photochemical behavior in the liquid crystal phases may differ from the solution behavior. Therefore, studying the photochemistry in situ during the transitions is important. I want to underline that it was demonstrated that the transition can be achieved at any temperature over the whole LC interval and no differences were found between transitions from nematic and smectic phase. As it was proven and previously highlighted that all our complexes exhibit similar and reproducible behavior, the isothermal transition for the AZO10-ST8 complex at 110ºC is shown in figure 29. Therefore, the sample was placed on the liquid crystal cell detecting the homogenous alignment of the liquid crystal complexes, due to the fact that the sample exhibited a colored bright image when viewed through crossed polarizers with the director axis set to ±45º in respect to the polarizer, but an opaque image was obtained when the axes coincided (Fig. 29a). When irradiating the sample (395 nm), the liquid crystal phase disappeared within 5 seconds, as you can see in figure 29b, indicating the transition liquid crystal-toisotropic phase. Sample was irradiated for 35 seconds, but not changes were detected in the POM. After the irradiation was switched off, although it was not instantaneous (significant delay), the liquid crystal phase reappeared again figure 29c. The last image figure 29 shows small black spots, which should be isotropic droplets that disappear after longer recovery time. 59 Figure 29. The photoinduced nematic-to-isotropic transition and the reverse transition of AZO10ST8 observed under POM. To better understand the different transitions occurred in the previous experiment, absorbance at 400 (coinciding with the absorption band of the azobenzene), birefringence, and absorbance 700 (optical scattering monitored at 700 nm, where neither of the compounds absorb) were simultaneously measured at different stages of the illumination cycle. The results are shown in figure 30. Before the irradiation, the birefringence revealed high values, probably related to the good orientation of the liquid crystal phase. The domains were oriented in the same direction due to the planar liquid crystal cell. As described above, illumination of the sample led to nematic-to-isotropic transition within 3 seconds and, consequently, to a sharp drop in the birefringence showing the disappearance of the orientational order. Regarding the absorbance at 400 nm and 700 nm, the photoinduced phase transition is accompanied with a rapid increase in both. The pick at 400 nm arises from a combination of increased scattering due to phase separation. The change in the UVVis absorption spectrum due to a red-shift of the π-π* absorbance band of the azobenzenes, is attributed to the disruption of molecular packing under UV illumination. On the other hand, another peak is shown at 700 nm, indicating that the photoinduced phase separation also takes place upon liquid crystal-to-isotropic phase transition. 60 The sample is illuminated for 35 seconds and, during this time, the only measurable change is the absorbance at 400 nm since it continues to decrease because of trans-cis isomerization. After stopping the irradiation, the azobenzene starts to thermally relax to the trans-form. It is necessary to wait for 130 seconds until the birefringence starts to recover. At the same time, the absorbance at 400 nm reaches the maximum, meaning that the isomerization cis-trans has started. In the absorbance at 700 nm another pick is detected which means that a new phase transition is happing in our sample. Indeed, as it was seen figure 29 from the POM images, it is remarkable that the nematic phase reappears as small domains with a phase separation process, which is now significantly slower than before starting the illumination. Figure 30. On the left the birefringence and absorbance measurements of the photoinduced nematic-to-isotropic transition. On the right the absorbance behavior under different illumination conditions. In addition to these features, our systems can undergo a crystalline-to-liquid phase transition under irradiation with the same wavelength. Actually, this transition has been recently reported happening in azobenzene-containing molecules, but not in azo-containing supramolecular or liquid crystal systems.150 In order to show this, the same complex (AZO10-ST8) was used at 85°C, where, obviously, the sample is in the crystal phase. Therefore, a clear and reversible crystal-to-isotropic transition was verified, as shown in figure 31. The crystalline phase melts within ca. 30 s irradiation, after which isotropic liquid is observed. Four minutes after ceasing the irradiation, the 61 recrystallization occurs through a partial nematic liquid crystal phase. The result is a homogeneous crystalline phase. It confirms that the halogen bond drives the supramolecular complexation for the photoresponsive liquid crystals and, in addition, the significant delay and the partial nematic phase confirm again that the transition is due to the isomerization. Figure 31. Transition crystal-to-isotropic liquid of AZO10-ST8 at 85 °C (10 °C below melting point) with 395 nm light. The initial crystal (1) melts into isotropic liquid (2) after ca. 30 s of illumination. The recrystallization (3) occurs through a partial nematic phase formation approximately 3 minutes after the UV light illumination. The recrystallization proceeds as a front due to uneven illumination conditions under the microscope. The end state is fully crystalline material (4) without phase separation. 62 2.4. Experimental part 2.4.1. General Procedure for the Synthesis of AZO molecules Reactions were carried out in oven-dried glassware under a nitrogen atmosphere. A solution of 4-iodo-2,3,5,6-tetrafluoroaniline (3.715 mmol) in dry acetonitrile (5 mL) was added dropwise to a solution of nitrosonium tetrafluoroborate (3.715 mmol) in acetonitrile (5 mL) at –30 °C. After 1 hour of additional stirring at –30 °C the appropriated alkoxybenzene (7.43 mmol) was added dropwise. The resulting solution was stirred overnight at room temperature and then water (15 mL) was added. The mixture was extracted three times with CH2Cl2. The organic layers were collected, dried over Na2SO4 and the solvent was removed under reduced pressure. The residue was purified by column chromatography using hexane as eluent to yield the AZO molecules (20-25%). AZO12: Yield 25%, m.p. 74 °C; 1H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl3): δ= 7.94 (d, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 7.01 (d, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 4.06 (t, J = 6 Hz, 2H), 1.83 (q, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 1.48 (q, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 1.28 (m, 16H), 0.89 ppm (t, J = 4, 3H); 13 C NMR (126 MHz, CDCl3): δ=163.68, 147.66, 147.61 (ddt, 1JCF = 246 Hz, 2JCF = 13 Hz, 3JCF = 5 Hz), 139.90 (dd, 1JCF = 265 Hz, 2JCF = 15 Hz), 133.32 (t, J = 14 Hz), 125.85, 115.08, 71.60 (t, J = 28 Hz), 68.76, 32.08, 29.80, 29.74, 29.51, 29.27, 26.13, 22.84, 14.25 ppm; 19F NMR (471 MHz, CDCl3): δ= -121.74 (m, 2F), -150.60 ppm (m, 2F). IR: 2919, 2850, 1599, 1578, 1472, 1407, 1252, 1143, 980, 836, 587, 525 cm-1. MS/ESI m/z 564.3 found 587.0 (M+Na+). AZO10: Yield 25%, m.p. 73 °C; 1H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl3): δ= 7.97 (d, J = 12 Hz, 2H), 7.01 (d, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 4.07 (t, J = 6 Hz, 2H), 1.83 (q, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 1.48 (q, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 1.28 (m, 12H), 0.89 ppm (t, J = 8, 3H); 13 C NMR (126 MHz, CDCl3): δ= 163.69, 147.67 (ddt, 1JCF = 246 Hz, 2JCF = 13 Hz, 3JCF = 5 Hz), 139.90 (dd, 1JCF = 265 Hz, 2JCF = 15 Hz), 133.32 (t, J = 14 Hz), 125.86, 115.10, 68.78, 32.05, 29.71, 29.51, 29.47, 29.27, 26.14, 22.83, 14.24 ppm; 19 F NMR (471 MHz, CDCl3): 63 δ= -121.77 (m, 2F), -150.65 ppm (m, 2F). IR: 2919, 2850, 1599, 1575, 1472, 1408, 1252, 1144, 980, 858, 587, 525 cm-1. MS/ESI m/z 536.2 found 559.0 (M+Na+). AZO8: Yield 20%, m.p. 72 °C; 1H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl3): δ= 7.94 (d, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 7.01 (d, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 4.06 (t, J = 6 Hz, 2H), 1.83 (q, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 1.48 (q, J = 8 Hz, 2H), 1.30 (m, 8H), 0.90 ppm (t, J = 4, 3H); 13 C NMR (126 MHz, CDCl3): δ=163.68, 147.66, 147.61 (ddt, 1JCF = 246 Hz, 2JCF = 14 Hz, 3JCF = 5 Hz), 139.90 (dd, 1JCF = 265 Hz, 2JCF = 15 Hz), 133.32 (t, J = 13 Hz), 125.81, 114.99, 71.67 (t, J = 28 Hz), 68.69, 31.95, 29.48, 29.74, 29.38, 29.24, 26.12, 22.81, 14.25 ppm; 19F NMR (471 MHz, CDCl3): δ= -121.75 (m, 2F), -150.66 ppm (m, 2F). IR: 2924, 2855, 1601, 1578, 1474, 1408, 1245, 1146, 979, 849, 567, 531 cm-1. MS/ESI m/z 508.2 found 530.9 (M+Na+). 2.4.2. Crystal structure determination As advanced in the structural analysis and as shown in figure 32, the structure of the newly synthetized trans-AZOm molecules was proven by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The long half-life of these azobencenes allowed us to grow single crystal of cis-AZO12. Figure 32. Crystal structure of the compounds (left to right, top to bottom): trans-AZO8, trans-AZO10, trans-AZO12 and cis-AZO12.144 64 In addition, we performed single crystal X-ray diffraction of our complexes (Fig. 33) and high quality data was obtained for three of them (AZO12-ST1; AZO10-ST1 and AZO8-ST2). The azobenzene derivatives and the stilbazoles were separately dissolved in CHCl3 at room temperature in 1:1 ratio, under saturated conditions. The saturated solutions containing the halogen-bond donor and the halogen bond acceptor were then mixed in a clear borosilicate glass vial, which was left open. The solvent was allowed to slowly evaporate at room temperature for three days until the formation of good-quality single crystals occurred. Figure 33. From the top to bottom: Crystal structure of the ST1-AZO12; ST1-AZO10 and ST2AZO8.144 The crystals were measured using Mo-Kα radiation on a Bruker KAPPA APEX II diffractometer with a Bruker KRIOFLEX low temperature device. Crystal structures were solved by direct hydrogen atoms were refined anisotropically and hydrogen atoms were refined using difference Fourier map or positioned geometrically. method and refined against F2 using SHELXL97.151 Packing diagrams 65 were generated using the CSD software Mercury 3.3.152 The non- hydrogen atoms were refined anisotropically and hydrogen atoms were refined using difference Fouries map or positioned geometrically. Chemical Formula Formula weight Temperature (K) Crystal system Space group a (Å) b (Å) c (Å) (°) β (°) (°) Volume (Å3) Z Density (gcm-3) μ (mm-1) F (000) ABS Tmin, Tmax θmin, max (°) No. of reflections. No. of independent reflections. No of parameter No of restraints R_all, R_obs wR2_all, wR2_obs ∆ρmin, max (eÅ-3) G.o.F CCDC trans-AZO12 trans-AZO10 trans-AZO8 cis-AZO12 C24H29F4IN2O 564.39 103(2) Triclinic P-1 7.4374(9) 10.2935(12) 16.536(2) 105.237(10) 101.641(10) 95.607(12) 1181.0(2) 2 1.587 1.406 568 0.5528, 0.7061 2.08, 35.74 39236 10045 C22H25F4IN2O 536.34 103(2) Triclinic P-1 7.3742(6) 10.3488(8) 15.1393(12) 72.642(4) 82.274(4) 83.512(4) 1089.47(15) 2 1.635 1.519 536 0.5035, 0.5926 2.07, 39.81 41970 10422 C20H21F4IN2O 508.29 103(2) Triclinic P-1 8.680(3) 9.209(3) 14.060(5) 107.04(3) 99.89(3) 99.970(10) 1028.3(6) 2 1.642 1.605 504 0.5337, 0.6935 2.38, 23.25 35868 2490 C24H29F4IN2O 564.39 103(2) Monoclinic P 21/c 8.5802(16) 33.663(5) 8.752(2) 90.00 109.255(16) 90.00 2386.5(8) 4 1.571 1.391 1136 0.7911, 0.8621 2.42, 27.52 5073 3840 290 0.0379, 0.0301 0.0795, 0.0749 -1.717, 1.390 1.071 272 0.0321, 0.0234 0.0548, 0.0514 -0.627, 0.612 1.068 237 174 0.1272, 0.0815 0.2375, 0.2176 -1.198, 1.334 1.114 290 0.0633, 0.0633 0.0587, 0.0534 -0.986, 0.574 1.047 Table 2. Crystallographic data for the compounds trans-AZO12, trans-AZO10, trans-AZO8 and cisAZO12. 66 Chemical Formula Formula weight Temperature (K) Crystal system Space group a (Å) b (Å) c (Å) (°) β (°) (°) Volume (Å3) Z Density (gcm-3) μ (mm-1) F (000) ABS Tmin, Tmax θmin, max (°) No. of reflections. No. of independent reflections. No of parameter No of restraints R_all, R_obs wR2_all, wR2_obs ∆ρmin, max (eÅ-3) G.o.F CCDC AZO12-ST1 AZO10-ST1 AZO8-ST2 C24H29F4IN2O, C14H13NO 775.65 103(2) C22H25F4IN2O, C14H13NO 747.59 103(2) C20H21F4IN2O, C15H15NO 733.57 150(2) Triclinic Triclinic Monoclinic P-1 7.7366(6) P-1 7.602(2) P 21/c 8.9690(3) 10.9857(8) 20.914(6) 8.4501(4) 21.3039(19) 21.785(5) 42.8603(19) 100.364(4) 105.819(12) 90.00 94.900(4) 99.102(12) 94.291(2) 99.552(4) 92.312(14) 90.00 1744.0(2) 3277.7(15) 3239.2(2) 2 1.477 4 1.515 4 1.504 0.977 792 1.037 1520 1.048 1488 0.7245, 0.8374 0.6644, 0.7686 0.6684, 0.7363 1.92, 30.00 34300 10000 1.95, 36.15 72347 28821 2.28, 34.51 38414 12504 435 - 833 - 406 - 0.0622, 0.0388 0.0526, 0.0330 0.0515, 0.0426 0.0728, 0.0662 -0.764, 0.638 0.0729, 0.0664 -0.598, 0.715 0.0945, 0.0912 -0.717, 0.844 1.017 1.017 1.163 Table 3. Crystallographic data for the complexes AZO12-ST1, AZO10-ST1 and AZO8-ST2. 67 2.5. Conclusions Fifteen new halogen-bonded mesogens were prepared and studied in great detail in this work. In particular, the photoinduced phase transitions was investigated thoroughly. Although, these transitions have been investigated in the seminal work of Ikeda,75 for the dye doped liquid crystals, the recently developed supramolecular LMWLCA have not been investigated so far. Given the versatility of the supramolecular halogen bonding approach, and the possibility to overcome the problems associated to common dye-doped liquid crystals, we expect this methodology to be more and more explored in the next future. 68 2.6. Halogen-bonded ionic liquid crystals 2.6.1. Objectives The goal of this project was to design a system of ionic liquid crystals assembled through halogen bond, based on the molecules synthetized in this Doctoral Thesis in order to study the ion conductivity of the samples.153 Liquid crystal phase is formed by preferential channels where an ion could go across them increasing the conductivity in respect to the isotropic phase, where the anarchical disposition of the molecules obstructs these movements.154-155 Moreover, by using photoresponsive molecules, we obtain a system that, a priori, is possible to control through the light.156 2.6.2. Materials, results and discussion We combined all our photoresponsive dyes with many imidazolium iodide with different long alkyl chains (Fig. 34). None of the compounds considered (exception 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide IMI12)157 in this work show liquid crystal phase by themselves. All the temperature transitions shown here have been checked by both, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Polarized Optical Microscopy (POM). Figure 34. The complexes prepared in this study are assembled by halogen bonding between imidazolium iodides “IMIn” (left) and photoresponsive halogen-bond donors AZOm (right). 69 We studied that some of these combinations present a large range of liquid crystal phase and, in particular, the best results for the combinations are highlighted in table 4. AZO12-IMI2 was the combination more deeply studied since it presents a very lager range of liquid crystallinity by cooling, and it would permit us to develop our experiments at a determined temperature without problems regarding the stability of the sample (Fig. 35). Complex Transition T [oC] 2AZO12-IMI2 I-SmA SmA-Cr Cr-SmA SmA-I Cr-SmA SmA-I (82) (38) 70 125 110 128 AZO12-IMI2 AZO10-IMI2 Table 4. Thermal data for the LC complexes Nevertheless, the main drawback that I found was to determinate the proper ratio that both compounds are combined to obtain the liquid crystal phase. To demonstrate the combination between them, single crystal is required and the structure should be solved through the X-ray diffraction. Although more than two hundred tests were done to obtain the single crystal (including solvent evaporation, solvent diffusion,158 heat and fast cooling with dry ice, heat and slow cooling 0.01 °C/min, high different concentrations…among many others), no single crystal of the combination AZO12-IMI2 was obtained. Figure 35. POM image of the 2AZO12-IMI2 at 70°C (cooling). 70 In order to demonstrate the stoichiometric combination between both compounds, the DSC of the complex and the starting materials by themselves was studied to see if any change is detected. Therefore, it was demonstrated that in the DSC of 2AZO12-IMI2 the temperature transitions change in comparison to the starting materials and, in addition, no peaks corresponding to IMI2 and AZO12 were detect (Fig. 36). For all of these reasons, it was confirmed that the sample is completely homogeneous and this is an unequivocal signal that the stoichiometry is 2AZO12-IMI2. Figure 36. DSC of IMI2, AZO12 and 2AZO-IMI2 Although it was not possible to obtain single crystal for the desired combination, a crystal of the combination AZO12-IMI12 was isolated, as you can see in figure 37. As it could be predictable for this kind of systems8-159 involving iodide ion within the general scheme C-I···I-···I-C, the stoichiometry was 2:1. The distance I···I- are 3.574 and 3.475 and C-I···I- and I···I-···I angles are 163.58°, 170.84° and 149.72° respectively, which gives an almost linear arrangement to both fluorinated rings and the iodide anion. 71 Figure 37. Crystal structure of 2AZO12-IMI12.144 My research group provided me with crystal structures160 of similar systems in order to demonstrate that these systems have usually stoichiometry 2:1. Therefore, in figure 38, where the crystal structure between two molecules of stilbene C8 (STC8) and one molecule of 1-decyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide (IMI10) is shown, single crystal was also isolated between two molecules of the same halogen-bond donor and one with one of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide (IMI2). In addition, the structures formed between 2STC8-IMI2, 2STC10-IMI8 and 2STC12-IMI10 were studied. Regarding the crystallographic data of the combination shown in figure 38, this system also shows parameters consisting of halogen-bonded system. The I…Idistances are longer in respect to the previous one (3.487 Å and 3.575 Å) and the CI…I- and I…I-…I angles are 160.32°, 172.59° and 154.38° respectively, which denote a slight difference with the previous case. However, these data are very similar to all the combinations quoted in this paragraph. Figure 38. Crystal structure of 2-stilbeneC8-IMI10.144 72 For the sake of comparison, the complex between an azo-dye with a smaller chain and some imidazolium iodide was checked. In particular, the single crystal structure of the well-known52 photoresponsive azo-dye with N-N-dimethylamino group (N,N-azo) and 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide (IMI8) was obtained as you can see in figure 39. In this case, the distance I···I- are 3.490 and 3.404 and CI···I- and I···I-···I angles are 164.97°, 179.06° and 149.85° respectively, and very much in line with the crystallographic structures previously reported. Unfortunately, this system does not present liquid crystal phase at any temperature. Figure 39. Crystal structure of N,N-azo halogen-bond donor and IMI8 iodide.144 2.6.3. Conductivity studies As already mentioned, the main idea of this work was to study the ion conductivity in a liquid crystal phase. With this proposal, considering the results reported in this chapter, 2AZO12-IMI2 was the best candidate to develop further studies. Therefore, we started testing the sample using a comb-shaped gold electrode, as it was many times reported for this kind of systems.153-156 In order to properly contradistinguish the conductivity regarding our designed system, we compared our measurements to the conductivity of the 1-dodecyl-3methylimidazolium iodide (IMI12) by itself, as you can see in figure 40. 73 Figure 40. On the left IMI12 conductivity. On the right 2AZO12-IMI2 conductivity. Unexpectedly, conductivity decreases for both IMI12 and 2AZO12-IMI2, going from the liquid to the liquid crystal phase. By studying the graphs, it is not possible to detect changes in the phase transition temperatures. It could be an effect of the noise of the measurement because the high value of the resistance comes into play. In addition, comparing both sample studies, IMI12 shows higher conductivity than 2AZO12-IMI2 (Fig. 41). Indeed, conductivity values of both materials are very low, even comparable to of the high quality deionized water (0,055 µS cm-1) while the conductivity reported in the Kato’s studies are around 1 µS cm-1.156 Figure 41. Comparison between conductivity of 2AZO12-IMI2 and IMI12 74 2AZO12-IMI12 2stilbeneC8-IMI10 2N,N-azo-IMI8 Chemical Formula Formula weight Temperature (K) Crystal system Space group a (Å) b (Å) c (Å) (°) β (°) (°) Volume (Å3) Z Density (gcm-3) μ (mm-1) F (000) ABS Tmin, Tmax θmin, max (°) No. of reflections. No. of independent reflections. No. of parameter No. of restraints R_all, R_obs wR2_all, wR2_obs ∆ρmin, max (eÅ-3) G.o.F CCDC 2C24H29F4IN2O, C16H31N2I 1507.11 103(2) Triclinic P-1 14.9747(15) 18.898(2) 25.034(3) 87.618(12) 76.317(10) 76.576(10) 6694.6(13) 4 1.495 1.468 3048.0 0.731, 0.863 0.954, 31.57 42910 27374 2C22H23F4IO, C14H27N2I 1362.88 123(2) Triclinic P-1 9.5648(12) 14.7815(18) 21.592(3) 102.28(2) 93.35(2) 100.96(2) 2912.9(7) 2 1.554 1.677 1364 0.6247, 0.7462 2.48, 31.13 61119 7583 2C14H10F4IN3, C12H23N2I 1168.52 103(2) Monoclinic P21 10.406(2) 7.8092(14) 26.717(5) 90.00 92.90(2) 90.00 2168.3(7) 2 1.790 2.236 1140 0.6319, 0.7471 0.922, 32.00 18631 17551 1503 0.0836, 0.0374 0.0903, 0.0729 -0.882, 3.564 1.017 683 0.0294, 0.0219 0.0557, 0.0520 -0.627, 0.612 1.016 536 1 0.0236, 0.0204 0.0449, 0.0439 -0.435, 1.254 1.017 Table 5. Crystallographic data for the complexes 2AZO12-IMI12, 2stilbeneC8-IMI10 and 2N,N-azoIMI8. 75 2.6.4. Conclusions Unfortunately, the results achieved did not satisfy our expectative. On the one hand, although we are pretty sure about the key combination of the molecules, we were not able to empirically demonstrate (single crystal) what the real stoichiometry is when these two non-mesophase compounds present liquid crystal phase put together. On the second hand, the ion conductivity did not work as we wanted. We individuated two main possible causes. The first one is that the long chains of our molecules stopple the channels where the ions had to pass. The second possibility could be that it is necessary to add a third compound on the sample in order to improve the movement of the anions. For instance, an iodine molecule can contribute153 to the equilibrium I- + I2 I3-. Also a second option is to dope the sample with a Lithium salt for the same considerations explained above. When this Doctoral Thesis was written, my efforts were directed to design a better system which could help us achieve the expected results. With this goal in mind, we started a collaboration with Professor Takashi Kato161 in order to improve the system. Therefore, this is work in progress in this direction. 76 CHAPTER 3 Metal Organic Frameworks 3.1. Objectives Recently, as it was advanced in the introduction, MOFs have been studied in the context of photoresponsive materials. Although almost ten papers have shown photoresponsive MOFs, no one of them reported Halogen Bonding interaction within. Considering all the properties of Halogen Bonding previously highlighted, it is now time to prepare systems where both photochromic moieties and halogen-bond donor sites are present in the metal organic network.162 In order to carry this work out,163 a photoresponsive molecule was designed and synthetized. This molecule presents four remarkable parts which is worth to underline because they give different properties to the azobenzene when incorporated into the network (Fig. 42). Therefore, the molecule was designed as an azobenezene which possess an azo-group between two benzene-rings, as advanced in figure 3. Secondly, the molecule was nicely decorated with a N,N-dimethylamino group because it promotes efficient cis-trans-cis cycling upon irradiation.37-164 In the second 77 aromatic ring, two carboxylates groups were incorporated, both of them in metaposition regarding the azo-group, in order to extend the coordination into the network.165 Finally, the molecule owns three iodine atoms in orto- and parapositions, with the goal of acting as halogen-bond donor within the supramolecular structure. Figure 42. On the left compound 1, on the right compound 2 For sake of comparison, a very similar ligand was synthetized, which does not have halogen-bond donor groups. The goal of this study was to demonstrate how the presence of these halogen-bond donor influences the final result of the network providing the supramolecular structure some more coordination points in comparison to the network done with the molecule 2. Additionally, it is worth noting that, in literature, the presence of azobenzenes containing halogen-bond donor groups is scarce.37-166-167 A very important point in the design of metal organic frameworks is the choice of the metal. In this work, Zn(II) was chosen to prepare the coordination networks because of some favorable features it shows when it is the center of the supramolecular structure. These characteristics are, for instance, that this metal tends to form bonds with a greater degree of covalence and it forms much more stable 78 complexes with N- and S- donors.168 In fact, zinc carboxylates have been shown to crystallize with a range of two- and three- dimensionally connected lattices.169-170 Complexes of zinc are mostly tetra- or hexa- coordinated, even though pentacoordinated complexes are known.171-172 In addition, Zn(II) is air stable and easy to handle and its complexes are among the most stable in the Irving-Williams series.173 Moreover, zinc represents an important metal to study because it is an essential trace element for humans and other animals and, recently, several papers have been published showing networks with zinc as metallic center.174 79 3.2. Materials All reagents and solvents were purchased from Aldrich and used without further purification. Distilled water was used for synthetic manipulations. 1H and 13C NMR spectra were recorded at room temperature on a Bruker AV400 spectrometer, using CDCl3 as solvent. 1H NMR and 13C NMR chemical shifts were referenced to tetramethylsilane (TMS) using the residual proton impurities of the deuterated solvents as standard reference. Melting points were determined on a Reichert instrument by observing the transition process though an optical microscope. ATRFTIR spectra were obtained with a Nicolet Nexus FTIR spectrometer. The values, given in wave numbers, were rounded to 1 cm-1 using automatic peak assignment. Mass spectra were recorded on a BRUKER Esquire 3000 PLUS. The single crystal X-ray structure were determined on a Bruker Kappa Apex II diffractometer at 103 K using a fine-focus MoKα tube, λ=0,71073 Å. Data collection and reduction were performed by SMART and SAINT and absorption correction, based on multi-scan procedure, by SADABS. The structure were solved by SIR92 and refined on all independent reflections by full-matrix least-squares based on Fo2 by using SHELX97. All the non-hydrogen atoms were refined anisotropically. The UV-Vis spectra were collected from both films and diluted (10-5 M) DMF solutions with an Oceans Opticals USB2000+ fiber-optic spectrometer and a DH-2000-BAL light source, both in dark and under irradiation (457 nm, 50 mW/cm2). Thermal cis-trans isomerization was studied by exciting the chromophores to the cis-state with a circularly polarized pump beam (457 nm, 50 mW/cm2) and monitoring the transmittance changes after blocking the pump. The probe was a fiber-coupled xenon lamp equipped with proper bandpass filters. The signal was detected with a photodiode and a lock-in amplifier. 80 3.3. Results and discussion In addition to the dyes explained above, three different organic molecules were used in order to collaborate with the assembly of the MOF. These linkers are the 4,4'Bipyridine, 1,2-Di(4-pyridyl)ethylene and even pyridine (Fig. 43). The choice of these molecules was encouraged because they are well-known spacers highly used in coordination polymers.175 Obviously at least two active-coordination points are required to obtain extended structures. However, pyridine only has one nitrogen capable to act as atom-linker. This fact is particularly attractive, because the structure has to grow in two-dimensions instead of tri-dimensions or, in other words, pyridine is useful in order to block positions in the metallic center.176 Figure 43. Organic commercial linkers used in this work. 3.3.1. {[Zn(1)(Py)2](2-propanol)}n (3) The hydrothermal reaction among Zn(NO3)2·6H2O, 2-propanol, pyridine and 1 led to the formation of the derivative 3 (Fig. 44) that was isolated as red crystals. This 3 crystallizes in the monoclinic P21/n space group and presents 1D chains, probably due to the explanation of the “block positions” pyridine above developed. The formula is [Zn(1)](Py)2]n, acting 1 as bridge which connects the metal cations. These chains are connected to the nearest one thanks to halogen bonding. In 1 two of the three iodine atoms from each molecule are involved in a halogen bond interaction. Iodine in position 2 forms halogen bond with the iodine in position 4 belonging to the parallel chain. Thus, iodine in position 4 forms halogen bond with iodine in position 2 of other chain. The solvent molecule is only involved in one interaction: a hydrogen 81 bonding is observed between the -OH group of the isopropanol molecule and the carboxylate group of 1 (O-H···O=C). The zinc center is bonded to two pyridine molecules, blocking two of the coordination positions, and to two 1 ligands forming a tetrahedral coordination center. The presence of pyridine as a ligand could be limiting the formation of a structure of greater dimension. Each azobenzene molecule 1 is linked to the metal atom through the carboxylate group in a monodentate fashion with a distance O-Zn of 1.939 Å. The other molecule 1 coordinated to the Zn(II) center is also linked to the carboxylate group in a monodentate fashion, but with a O-Zn distance of 1.946 Å. Considering the zinc atoms on the same plane allows us to divide the network it in two parts (Fig. 44). In the upper part, one pyridine molecule (one for each zinc ions) forms an angle between itself and the plane of 93.92°. The other pyridine has three atoms (two carbons and the nitrogen) crossed by the plane. The remaining three atoms are below the plane. The molecule forms an angle of 30.21° with the plane. On the bottom of the plane, two azobenzene molecules are bound. Figure 44. On the left the coordination polymer 3, projected along its main axis. On the right projected approximately orthogonal to main axis.144 82 3.3.2. {[Zn(1)2(4,4’-bipyridyl)2](DMF)2}n (4) After the studies of 3, and since pyridine cannot work as a multi-dentate ligand, it was wondering how the system could act if a bidentate ligand was placed in the supramolecular structure. Thus, after several days at room temperature a solution of Zn(NO3)2∙6H2O with 4,4’-bipyridyl and 1 in a mixture of DMF, EtOH, and water, afforded dark red crystals of the framework 4 and single crystal X-ray analyses revealed its structure, showing a tetranuclear derivative that crystallizes in the monoclinic C2/c space group. Figure 45. A single complete net projected along the a axis, showing the cage that contains two DMF molecules (larger balls).144 Four zinc atoms show a distorted hexagonal geometry and the axial positions are occupied by two monodentate carboxylate groups coming from the azobenzene ligands 1. The equatorial plane is defined by four 4-4’dipyridil linked each of them to two zinc ions, forming a square. Iodine atoms 1A point to the center of the square, 83 which interact with the oxygen atom of the DMF through a halogen bond (O···I distance 2.930 Å). Each iodine comes from two different azobenzene molecules, one of them from the top and the other one from the bottom of the square. As shown in figure 46, two DMF molecules are hosted in the center of the cavity, and is the halogen bond which supports the storage of this solvent molecule. Overall the structure presents a sandwich geometry. Above and below this level there are the azobenzenes. There is a halogen bond between the planes that results particularly interesting, due to the fact that it involves the iodine I3A of the azo molecule and the nitrogen N2A of the -N=N- group. I···N distance is 2.979 Å, and C-I···N angle is 166.45°. This is shorter than the only other case of halogen bonding involving the nitrogen atom of an azo group found in CCDC database (TEGFUI, 3.240 Å, 152.5°).52 Figure 46. A single complete net projected along the b axis, where halogen bond (I•••O) is evident.144 84 3.3.3. {[Zn(2)(1,2-di(4-pyridyl)ethylene)](DMF)1.81}n (5) As stated previously, we synthetized 2 which has the same structure as 1 but without iodine atoms. This new azobenzene was used to obtain 5, under isothermal conditions and using the same solvent in the synthesis of 4. In compound 5, as in 3, the Zn atoms are tetrahedrally coordinated with 2 acting as bridge between two metal atoms and therefore, Zn is bonded to two 1,2-di(4-pyridyl)ethylene, that, being chemically symmetric also link two Zn atoms. These bridges form a zig-zag 2D network from where, to both sides, the 2 molecule lean out, this 2D layers interdigitate (Fig. 47). Figure 47. Interdigitating of three 2D layers projected along a axis using different colors. The 3D structure shows a planar rectangular network of channels occupied by two independent molecules of DMF, one of these, linked two dipyridylethylene is ordered, while the second is less bonded, and positioned in the larger channel of the network. Last DMF molecule is so mobile that the refinement of it population converge at 0.81 rather then 1.00, probably because the time needed for the manipulation of the crystal before its freezing was sufficient for a partial loss of DMF (Fig. 48). 85 Figure 48. Left: packing view along a showing the bidimensional pipe network containing DMF in Mercury style. Right: the same viewed along c. In all the plots, the DMF is omitted and only one of the disordered conformers is reported, for clarity.144 3.3.4. Photochemical studies To assess the reliability of our dyes as photoswitching units for our coordination structures, we studied their photochemistry in diluted solution in DMF (10-5 M). The UV-Vis spectra of both 1 (Fig. 49) and 2 (Fig. 50) are quite similar, displaying an absorption maximum at 400 and 435 nm respectively. We also measured the cis thermal half-lifetimes upon UV-VIS irradiation at 457 nm of the corresponding trans azobenzene using reported procedures, and we obtained the values τ = 3000 s and τ = 850 s for 1 and 2 respectively. 86 Figure 49. Left, UV-vis spectra of 1 before (black curve) and after (coloured curves) irradiation using 457 nm light. Right, time development of the absorbance of 1. Figure 50. Left, UV-vis spectra of 2 before (black curve) and after (coloured curves) irradiation using 457 nm light. Right, time development of the absorbance of 2. 87 3.4. Experimental part 3.4.1. Synthesis of AZO molecules Compound 1 (E)-4-((2,4,6-triiodoisophtalic)phenyl)diazenyl)-N,N- dimethylbenzenamine: In a round bottom flask 5-amino-2,4,6triiodosophtalic acid (0.560 g, 0.001 mmol) was dissolved in 3 ml of water. The solution was cooled to 3oC. After 10 minutes, 0.3 mL concentrated HCl was added. In an Erlenmeyer, sodium nitrite (1eq) was dissolved in 0.8 of water previously cooled at the same temperature. When each solution was solved, the mixtures were put together. Sodium acetate and N,N–dimethylaniline were solved in a mixture of ethanol: water (2 mL : 0.8 mL). This solution was also cooled down to -3 oC and added, after 20 minutes, to the amine solution. The reaction was stirred for 16 hours at room temperature. Then, water was added and the mixture was extracted tree times with ethyl acetate. The mixture was dried (Na2SO4) and evaporated under vacuum. After that, a solution of NaOH (0.01M) was added up to solid was solved. The solution was washed several times with ethyl acetate. Then aqueous solution was acidified with HCl (pH=1). Finally, the mixture was extracted with ethyl acetate (for two times) and the solvent was removed under vacuum. Yield 55%. M.p. 237 °C (dec). 1H NMR (DMSO, 400 MHz, 293 K, δ ppm): 7.81 (d, 3JHH = 8 Hz, 2H), 6.88 (d, 3JHH = 8 Hz, 2H), 3.10 (s, 6H). 13 C NMR (DMSO, 100 MHz, 293 K, δ ppm): 169.21, 148.96, 147.19, 146.55, 141.26, 140.18, 125.31, 111.45, 92.59, 88.90, 85.67, 30.54. FTIR: νmax = 3323, 2911, 2637, 2504, 1729, 1697, 1598, 1545, 1516, 1317, 1248, 1179, 1126, 931,917, 902, 750 cm-1. Anal. Calcd for C16H12N3O4I3: C, 27.81; H, 1.75; N, 6.08%. Found: C, 27.62; H, 1.72; N, 5.99%. MS/ESI m/z 691.0, found 692.1 (M + H+). Compound 2 (E)-4-(isophtalicphenyl)diazenyl)-N,N- dimethylbenzenamine: This compound was synthetized using the same procedure as per compound 1. The only one change regarded the use of 5-aminoisophtalic acid 88 (0.001 mmol) instead of 5-amino-2,4,6triiodosophtalic acid. Yield 62%. M.p. 251 °C (dec) 1H NMR (DMSO, 400 MHz, 293 K, δ ppm): 8.47 (s, 1H). 8.45 (s, 2H), 7.85 (d, 3 JHH = 8 Hz, 2H), 6.85 (d, 3JHH = 8 Hz, 2H), 3.08 (s, 6H). 13 C NMR (DMSO, 100 MHz, 293 K, δ ppm): 166.70, 153.60, 153.25, 142.94, 132.97, 130.44, 126.43, 125.80, 112.10. FTIR: νmax = 2819, 2663, 2549, 1692, 1602, 1562, 1522, 1454, 1397, 1366, 1277, 1148, 916, 813, 858, 726, 692 cm-1. Anal. Calcd for C16H15N3O4: C, 61.34; H, 4.83; N, 13.41%. Found: C, 61.11; H, 4.63; N, 13.67%. MS/ESI m/z 313.3, found 314.1 (M + H+). 3.4.2. Synthesis of MOFs Compound 3 {[Zn(1)(Py)2](2-propanol)}n. A mixture of 0.032 g (0.107 mmol) of Zn(NO3)2·6H2O, 0.036 g (0.052mmol) of compound 1, 0.009 g (0.106 mmol) of pyridine, 0.053 mL of a solution 2M (NaOH in H2O) and 0.132 mL of 2propanol was sealed in a 1.5 mL Teflon-lined autoclave and heated at 80 °C for 32 hours. Then the autoclave was slowly cooled to room temperature. The mixture was filtered and compound 1 was isolated as red crystals. Compound 4 {[Zn(1)2(4,4’-bipyridyl)2](DMF)2}n. A mixture of 0.008 g (0,027mmol) of Zn(NO3)2·6H2O, 0.012g (0.0179 mmol) of compound 1, 0.010g (0.064mmol) of 4,4’-bipyridine was solved in 5 mL of DMF, 2 mL of ethanol and 1 mL of H2O. The solution was stirred for 10 min. The mixture was filtered and kept at room temperature. After some days, a red single crystal was obtained. Compound 5 {[Zn(2)(1,2-di(4-pyridyl)ethylene)](DMF)1.81}n. 0.008 g (0.027 mmol) of Zn(NO3)2·6H2O, 0.006g (0.0179 mmol) of compound 2, 0.012g (0.064mmol) of 1,2-di(4-pyridyl)ethylene were dissolved in 5 mL of DMF, 2 mL of ethanol and 1 mL of H2O. The mixture was stirred for 10 min. After that, it was filtered and kept at room temperature. After some days compound 7 was isolated as red crystals. 89 Compound 3 Compound 4 Compound 5 Chemical Formula 2C26H20I3N5O4Zn. C3H8O C52H38I6N10O8Zn. 2C3H7NO C28H23N5O4Zn. 1.81C3H7NO Formula weight 1885.17 1903.89 690.97 Temperature (K) 103(2) 103(2) 103(2) Crystal system Space group monoclinic monoclinic monoclinic P21/n C2/c P21/c a (Å) 8.813(2) 24.0554(18) 10.1389(5) b (Å) 23.763(5) 11.3346(9) 14.9139(8) c (Å) 14.620(3) 22.9563(18) 23.1236(12) (°) 90.00 90.00 90.00 β (°) 91.91(2) 98.893(8) 95.194(2) (°) 90.00 90.00 90.00 Volume (Å3) 3060.1(11) 6184.0(8) 3482.2(3) Z 2 4 4 Density (gcm-3) 2.046 2.045 1.316 μ (mm-1) 3.873 3.461 0.757 Dimensions (mm-3) 0.04, 0.04, 0.21 0.06, 0.07, 0.33 0.07, 0.04, 0.22 Colour, form Red, needle Red, needle Orange, prism ABS Tmin, Tmax 0.5437, 0.6752 0.4380, 0.5769 0.6977, 0.7456 θmax 25.68 31.51 27.91 No. of reflections. 35345 58923 77266 No. of independent reflections. No of parameter 5805 10264 7964 409 483 431 No of restraints 142 229 406 R_all, R_obs 0.077, 0.049 0.063, 0.048 0.115, 0.079 wR2_all, wR2_obs 0.115, 0.104 0.130, 0.122 0.257, 0.227 ∆ρmin, max (eÅ-3) -2.00, 4.29 -3.65, 2.72 -0.64, 0.95 G.o.F 1.040 1.037 1.057 CCDC Table 6. Crystallographic data for the compounds 3, 4, 5. 90 3.5. Conclusions This work has permitted us to synthetized two new azobenzenes and using them, obtained three new metal organic frameworks. Therefore, the structures were obtained in different conditions, hydrothermal or isothermal and several halogen bonding interactions were found in the frameworks containing iodine. As far as I know, these are the first coordination networks involving both azobenzene molecules and halogen bonding interactions. In this sense, I want to underline the importance of halogen bonding in the construction of coordination polymers. Furthermore, preliminary photochemical studies of the azobenzenes 1 and 2 in solution confirm that their cis isomer lifetimes177-178 matches the bistability requested for the controlled release of a guest. Such outcomes are important in view of the design and synthesis of future halogen-bonded azobenzene-containing photoresponsive MOF. 91 CHAPTER 4 Block Co-polymers 4.1. Objectives As advanced in the introduction, block co-polymers have been widely studied in recent years especially for the construction of patterns based on microdomains formed by many different forms. Roukolainen et al.179 first demonstrated the formation of these patterns through the hydrogen bonding by pentadecylphenol and PS-b-P4VP. Until now, the construction of these patterns was mainly studied by selfassembly through hydrogen bonding among other interactions. As it was many times highlighted in the discussion of this Doctoral Thesis, halogen bonding presents many more advantages than the better known hydrogen bonding. Despite this, halogen bonding has only been scarcely used in polymeric systems up to now. Very recently, it has been shown that halogen bonding can be used to induce long-range orientation in polymer self-assemblies44 and, in fact, there are some examples using halogen bonding in polymer-topic such as, for instance, 92 layer-by-layer assemblies,180 long-range polymer alignment liquid crystalline supramolecular polymers,181 supramolecular gels,182 solution assembly of complementary polymer blocks,19 light responsive polymers52 and molecularly imprinted polymers.183 My effort was to investigate how incorporation of halogen bonding into block co-polymers studies can supply and even improve the results obtained using hydrogen bond since many years. The first important point was the choice of the best halogenated molecule candidate and, obviously, in this choice, the strength of the halogen-bond donor played a very important role. Considering the studies shown before (Fig. 3), iodine is the best halogen-bond donor because of its remarkable positive behavior, which is even stronger if fluorine atoms are placed in the closest positions. Since its length is so comparable to the previous studies developed with hydrogen bonding, 1,8diiodoperfluorooctane (DIPFO) was chosen as the molecule. In the same way, the choice of the polymer was also an important decision. Considering the previous studies already published, we used the Polystyrene-block-4-vinylpyridine (PS-bP4VP) (Fig. 13). In fact, it has been reported that, when mixed, 1Py:1Iodine the P4VP and α,ω-iodoperfluoroalkanes co-assemble to form com-like structure.184 93 4.2. Materials The polymer Polystyrene-block-4-vinylpyridine (PS-b-P4VP) Mn=41300 (PS) and 8200 (P4VP), (PDI =1.13) was purchased from Polymer Source. 1,8Diiodoperfluorooctane was purchased from ChemSpider. Chloroform and ethanol were purchased from Aldrich Sigma Chemicals and used as are. Infrared spectra were recorded in transmission mode, in the far-IR region (600-100 cm-1, 4 cm-1 resolution) and mid-IR region (500-4000 cm-1, 4 cm-1 resolution) with a Nicolet iS50 FT-IR spectrometer equipped with a DTGS detector. The AFM images were taken on a Agilent 5500 Atomic Force Microscope operated in the Acoustic Mode using silicon tapping mode tips (nominal radius 7 nm). The average size and distance of the cylindrical P4VP(DIPFO) domains were evaluated by ImageG software. The full image shown was used in order to obtain the values. Solid sample was placed on the TGA after solvent was removed. Analyses were performed on a TGA Q500 (TA Instruments) at a heating rate of 5°C/min, from 25°C to 250°C under nitrogen atmosphere ( flow rate 45 ml/min). In order to prepare the sample for TEM, PS-bP4VP and DIPFO were dissolved in CHCl3 separately at 0.2 g.mL-1 concentration. The PS-b-P4VP solution was added dropwise to the DIPFO solution in order to reach a final 1:2 DIPFO:vinylpyridine molar ratio and the final solution was stirred for one hour to allow complexation, than it was deposited on a Teflon slide and left under a fumehood overnight to allow the solvent to evaporate. For the actual TEM investigations, the specimens were cooled down to -187 oC after sectioning and cryotransferred to the TEM device in order to keep sections relatively intact. SAXS measurements were performed with a setup consisting of a Bruker Microstar microfocus X-ray source with a rotating anode (λ = 1.54 Å) and Montel optics. The beam from the X-ray source was further adjusted by four sets of four-blade slits, which resulted about 1 x 1 mm beam at the sample position. The scattered beam was detected with Hi-Star 2D area detector (Bruker). For measurements, the sample to detector distance was set to 0.59 m to see the desired length scale in the measurements. The measured 2D scattering data is azimuthally averaged to obtain 94 one-dimensional SAXS data. Raman spectra were acquired at RT by using a Horiba Xplora MicroRaman instrument equipped with an Olympus BX-41 Microscope. An excitation wavelength of 785 nm was used. Laser power was attenuated by neutral density filters with a final power density of B0.07 mW mm-2. The low wavenumber detection limit is 140 cm-1. Each spectrum was acquired with an exposure time of 5 s over 35 cycles. The raw data were first corrected from the baseline, using the JASCO Nicolet FTIR software, Omnic 9.0, between 200 and 560 cm-1. Obtained data were subsequently normalized, for the sake of comparison, and plotted using Origin Pro 8. Thin complex films were coated through Physical Vacuum Deposition (PVD) using a MB-ProVap-3 glove-box workstation (Tungsten source). 95 4.3. Results and discussion We developed our study based on morphological investigations by AFM. The first step was to demonstrate that halogen bonding has an influence on the supramolecular organization of the polymer while the polymer by itself does not. Therefore, in figure 51 the differences between the polymer and the polymer with DIPFO (done by spin-coating at 500 rpm), are shown. The differences between both are well evident and, therefore, it can be deduced that halogen bonding critically influences the final organization of the thin films block co-polymers. Moreover, it is possible to conclude that, in this case, microphase separation does not occur because of selectivity of the solvent, as it is highly known and reported in the papers. Thus, thin film spin-coated from the complex solution displayed clear microphase separation. These nanostructures were mostly arranged in a hexagonal pattern, as demonstrated in figure 51. However, domains with tetragonal order were also found, as shown in figure 52. Figure 51. On the top, a dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the polymer (blank). On the bottom, a dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the polymer plus DIPFO (complex) 96 Figure 52. A dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the polymer with DIPFO showing tetragonal order. The parameters of distribution of diameter bulk and distance center-to-center were studied and shown in figure 53. Cylindrical P4VP/DIPFO domains of roughly average 27.2 ± 5.7 nm diameter were observed, embedded in a polystyrene matrix with an approximate center-to-center of about 45.3 ± 5.8 nm. Figure 53. Distribution parameters of diameter bulk (left) and distance center-to-center (right) As previously stated, the samples were done by spin-coating at 500 rpm. In order to demonstrate the versatility of the method, the AFMs done at different speeds (1000 rpm and 2000 rpm) are shown in figure 54. No notable differences were detected between them. Thus, for the whole development of this work, 500 rpm was used and results can be applied to the rest of the speeds. 97 Figure 54. A dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images for the complex at different speeds (from the top to the bottom, 500, 1000 and 2000 rpm respectively) In figure 55 the TEM images are shown for our sample. As it is possible to see in these figures, cylindrical domains have been observed rather than spherical microphases, which are mostly arranged in a hexagonal pattern. These cylindrical domains consist of a core-tube formed by P4VP/DIPFO halogen–bonded complexes surrounded by a PS corona. In addition to halogen-bonding between the nitrogen 98 atom of P4VP and the both iodine atoms (every iodine is linked to one different pyridine)184 of DIPFO, interactions between the fluorinated tails should also play a role in the segregation process, as it has been reported in preliminary works.185 Figure 55. TEM images All the studies already presented in this chapter, give us the intuition that halogen bond remarkably influences the final organization of the structure. However, I considered crucial to “empirically” confirm the presence of halogen bond in this orientated domains. Therefore, SAXS, TGA, FTIR and RAMAN were used to unequivocally demonstrate the halogen bond presence. 99 First the packing and structures were determined by SAXS,186 where all peaks were fitted to Lorentzian profile for clarity. Two main reflection maxima at q2=0.016 Å-1 and q3= 0.019 Å-1 along with a well-pronounced higher order composite reflection between 0.04 and 0.05 Å-1 were detected (figure 56), indicating that ordering took place in the PS-b-P4VP(DIPFO) system. This higher order reflection has a maximum at ca. 0.043 Å-1 which closely correlates with the higher order peak ratios of √7q2 and √5q3, designating both hexagonal and tetragonal packing, respectively. Despite the absence of expected √3q2 and √2q3 secondary reflections (note the weak scattering between 0.02 Å-1 and 0.03 Å-1, where the reflections become most likely screened by the intense main peaks), we suggest a coexistence of hexagonal and tetragonal packings with spacing between the adjacent P4VP (DIPFO) domains of ca. 45 nm (q2=0.016 Å-1) and 38 nm (0.019 Å-1), respectively. In fact, the coexistence of these two phases has been previously reported.187 Compared to the PS-b-P4VP (DIPFO) complex, the pure copolymer shows a main broad reflection at q 1 = 0.021 Å-1 and a secondary weak reflection at ca. 0.056 with a ratio of 1:√7, indicating only a poor hexagonal local order, with tentative spacing of ca. 34 nm. Figure 56. SAXS patterns of PS-b-P4VP (trace 1) and PS-b-P4VP(DIPFO) (trace 2) samples prepared by drop casting. 100 Considering the above SAXS results, it is possible to conclude that by mixing PS-b-P4VP with DIPFO, a new halogen-bonded P4VP(DIPFO) domain was formed, where interdomain spacing increased from 34 nm to 38-45 nm. Also, due to complex formation, the local polymer order was dramatically improved including well-defined hexagonal and tetragonal morphologies. In addition to the SAXS, in order to demonstrate the presence of halogen bonding interaction in our system, FTIR, TGA and RAMAN have been also studied. Therefore, in figure 57, IR spectrum of DIPFO (green), PS-b-P4VP (red) and complex (blue) are shown. It is possible to note the typical188-189 red-shifts (2-4 cm-1) of the C-F stretching bands, which are located at 1112 cm-1 and 1090 cm-1 in pure DIPFO. Moreover, not significant changes are detected in the peaks relative to the polymer before and after complexation. Figure 57. Comparison of IR spectrum of DIPFO, PS-b-P4VP and complex 101 In figure 58, TGA of the solid complex, DIPFO and PS-b-P4VP are shown. There is a 33.95% of weight loss, which is well in line with the stoichiometry quantity of DIPFO when the sample is 1 mol of DIPFO: 2 mol of 4-vinylpyridine monomer unit, so that it confirms the stoichiometry of our complex. Particularly interesting is to note that it is necessary to reach almost 190 °C to remove all the DIPFO of the sample, while, when the DIPFO is not linked, the sample evaporates at 105 °C. This change in the boiling point is attributed to the interaction between DIPFO and the PS-b-P4VP. Figure 58. Comparison of TGA for PS-b-P4VP, complex and DIPFO. In figure 59, the RAMAN spectrum is shown where it is possible to note the red shift of the Raman C-I band from 291.5 to 279.0 cm-1. These shifts are well in line with some studies previously reported.188-189 102 Figure 59. Comparison of Raman spectrum for PS-b-P4VP, complex and DIPFO. After the new fast and efficient nanostructuring of block copolymers directed by halogen bonding was proven, my efforts were focused on removing the smallmolecule additive which acts as directed, keeping the same pattern obtained. In other words, the next step is to remove DIPFO contained within our cylinders in order to create void tubes. The non-covalent nature of halogen bonding allowed us to remove the DIPFO by washing it with ethanol, according to the analogous concept already illustrated.112 Ethanol was chosen because it is a good solvent for DIPFO. In addition, as shown in figure 60, no changes in the structural organization of the thin films after treatment are detected since ethanol does not swell the PS polymer matrix. The hexagonal arrangement of the washed film was maintained, as it is possible to see in figure 60, although the roughness of the exposed PS matrix surface seems to have slightly increased. On the other hand, notable differences were found in the phase contrast of the thin film surfaces before and after washing. These changes are in line with the fact that one compound was removed, since it seems that just one kind of material is on the film. 103 Figure 60. A dual height (left) and phase (right) AFM images of a thin complex film after washing with ethanol. The complete removal of the fluorinated molecule is demonstrated in figure 61 where IR spectra of the washed sample are shown, where no absorption bands of DIPFO are detected. Figure 61. ATR-FTIR spectra of PS-b-P4VP, DIPFO and of a thin spin-coated complex film, both as prepared and after ethanol washing. 104 In order to prove the presence of hollow spaces in the cylindrical structures, metalation experiments were studied, where gold evaporated and deposited on the top of the ethanol washed thin films. Therefore, after removing the polymer template with a washing in acetone, film with gold nanodots (Fig. 62) with a diameter average of 46.9 ± 10.3 nm figure 63 was created and studied by AFM. In addition, this film confirms that DIPFO can be removed from the polymer through the treatment previously explained. Figure 62. AFM topographic micrograph on the left and section profile on the right of gold nanostructures prepared by metalation of the hollow template left after washing the thin complex film in ethanol, and subsequent removal of the polymer template by acetone. Figure 63. Chart of the size distribution of gold nanodots. 105 4.4. Experimental part 4.4.1. Samples for AFM Samples for AFM were prepared by mixing two solutions previously prepared separately. Both compounds PS-b-P4VP and DIPFO were separately solved in chloroform (1 mol of DIPFO: 2 mol of 4-vinylpyridine monomer unit) and placed in an ultrasonic bath till no solid was observed. After that, solution A was then added drop-by-drop to DIPFO solution, while the solution was placed again in an ultrasonic bath. The resulting solution was used as it is. Complex thin films were prepared by spin-coating onto glass film (cleaned previously with oxygen and plasma) at different speeds. 4.4.2. Removal of DIPFO in the complex The same film done for AFM was placed in a simply ethanol solution overnight. After that, sample was dried with an air flow. 4.4.3. Preparation of samples for IR Samples for IR were prepared by mixing two solutions previously prepared. Both compounds PS-b-P4VP and DIPFO were separately solved in chloroform (1 mol of DIPFO: 2 mol of 4-vinylpyridine monomer unit) and placed in an ultrasonic bath till no solid was observed. After that, solution A was then added drop-by-drop to DIPFO solution, while the solution was placed again in an ultrasonic bath. The resulting solution was used as it is. Complex thin films were prepared by spin-coating onto glass film a 500 rpm. After that, the solvent was removed with air flow, the film was placed in transmission IR. 106 4.4.4. Preparation of samples for TGA Samples for TGA were prepared by mixing two solutions previously prepared. Both compounds PS-b-P4VP and DIPFO were separately solved in chloroform (1 mol of DIPFO: 2 mol of 4-vinylpyridine monomer unit) and placed in an ultrasonic bath till no solid was observed. After that, solution A was then added drop-by-drop to DIPFO solution, while the solution was placed again in an ultrasonic bath. Finally, the solvent was removed by air flow and the solid left was placed on the TGA instrument. 4.4.5. Metalation Thin complex films were coated with a 5 nm thick gold layer through Physical Vacuum Deposition (PVD). Evaporation was carried out at a pressure of 5×10-6 mbar with a constant rate of 0.2-0.3 Å/sec. 107 4.5. Conclusions In this work, it was demonstrated that halogen bonding is also an effective tool to enhance microphase separation in solid block copolymer systems. One of the most important result achieved is that through halogen bond between a polymer block and an iodoperfluoroalkane it is possible to obtain nanopatterned solid films, even upon simple spin-coating from a non-block-selective solvent, and in the absence of annealing treatments. Finally, it was shown that the small molecule additive DIPFO can be easily removed from the polymer matrix to result in hollow nanostructures, according to a concept which was previously demonstrated only for hydrogen bonded systems. 108 General conclusions and future perspectives In this doctoral thesis, the exceptional features of the halogen bonding1 were applied and exploited in three well-known topics in Supramolecular Chemistry (Liquid Crystals, Metal Organic Frameworks and Block Co-Polymers). Although Ikeda et al75 has published a work for dye doped covalent liquid crystals, the recently developed supramolecular low molecular weight photocontrollable liquid crystals have not been investigated in depth yet. The versatility of the supramolecular approach to LMWLCAs may provide the possibility to overcome common problems and encountered with dye doped liquid crystals, e.g., phase separation of the dye. Our approach using halogen bonding has been demonstrated particularly reliable and robust. In fact, we have obtained low molecular weight photocontrollable liquid crystals with unprecedented features such as a fast and efficient photoinduced phase transition from the liquid crystalline to the isotropic state and from the crystalline to the isotropic state. The MOFs work has allowed me to synthetize two new azo-dyes and obtain three new coordination networks that display diverse dimensionality. These structures were obtained in different conditions, by hydrothermal synthesis or isothermal evaporation, and by using different organic molecules as additional linkers (bipyridine, dipyridylethylene, and also pyridine). As far as I know, they are the first coordination networks involving both azobenzenes and halogen bonding. In fact, single crystal X-ray diffraction studies revealed that iodine atoms function as good halogen bond-donor sites coordinating the solvent included in the framework. 162 Our preliminary photochemical studies confirm the formation of the cis isomer of the ligand in solution. Such outcomes are important in view of the design and synthesis of halogen-bonded azobenzene-containing photoresponsive MOF. 109 The results achieved in the block co-polymer work, point out that halogen bonding is an effective tool to enhance microphase separation in these systems. 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