Molecular rotors, single molecules analogous to macroscopic gyroscopes, have shown the ability to undergo ordered but unhindered motion in the solid state. Previously, it has been shown that the stationary portions, or stators, of molecular rotors will interdigitate when crystallized, imposing barriers to rotation in the solid state. To overcome this problem, rotors were synthesized with macrocyclic bridges linking the two sides of the stator in order to prevent interdigitation. While the bridges did succeed in this respect, we found that they could still interdigitate with each other as well as collapse in towards the rotator, which also resulted in hindered rotation. Thus, a new strategy was devised to prevent collapse and interdigitation by taking advantage of the bridge functionalities to force adjacent bridges to link. This work presents an exploration of different approaches for linking the bridged molecules into dimers and trimers, as well as extended polymer networks.

Synthesis of cross-linked molecular rotors in pursuit of fast rotational dynamics in the solid state

250th National Meeting (2015)

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