The controllable aggregate structures, morphologies, dimensions, size and properties by the design and self-assembly of functional molecules are the important front subjects in the fields of chemistry, physics and materials et al.

The researchers from CAS Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, made a series of significant progress in the controllable self-assembly and properties of functional molecules by the support of National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Recently, they designed and synthesized a class of novel porphyrin molecules TEOP with amphiphilic groups and achieved the controlling construction of ordered nanostructures and properties. The results were published on Advanced Materials 2010, 22, 3532–3536.

Using the in situ growth and colloidal self-assemble method, TEOP films with well-ordered uniform pattern have been successfully fabricated. The well-order large area nanospheres of the film were hexagonal close-packed. The present results show that, using the small molecule TEOP, the in situ assembly was a very convenient and efficient approach for quickly fabricating high quality ordered 2D and 3D pattern. More interesting, They studied the nonlinear absorption and nonlinear refraction of the TEOP solution and film with ordered pattern by using the Z-scan technique. The TEOP film with well-ordered uniform pattern possessed strong saturated absorptive and self-defocusing nonlinearities while the TEOP solution exhibit reverse saturated absorption. The values of the nonlinear absorption coefficient of the TEOP well-ordered film and solution differed by three orders of magnitude. The novel TEOP film architecture exhibits great potential applications for new optical devices.

In addition, a series of new progress in the research of design of molecules, self-assembly, solid structures and properties were successfully achieved and published on Chem. Commun. 2010, 46, 3161; Chem. Commun. 2010,46, 5698; J. Phys. Chem. C2010, 114, 12982; J. Phys. Chem. C2010, 114, 15109; Org. Biomol. Chem.2010, 8, 3923.

The TEOP molecular structures, controlling the process of self-assembly and construction of ordered nanostructes