Controlled self-assembly of electron donor nanotubes

Org Lett. 2009 Oct 15;11(20):4524-7. doi: 10.1021/ol901695m.

Abstract

We employ a combination of urea-urea hydrogen bonds and pi-pi stacking interactions to obtain soluble self-assembled nanotubes decorated with electron-donor TTF derivatives on the periphery. We have investigated the structure and stability of the nanotubes with a combination of experiments and high-level DFT calculations. We also demonstrate that the association process can be controlled by changes in the hydrogen-bonding ability of the solvent and electrochemically.