The formation of multilayered vesicles has been reported in various systems such as block polymers and surfactant lipids. Despite their attractive properties in many potential applications, the assembly size and polydispersity are still very hard to be controlled. Very recently, Percec et al. reported the successful achievements of amphiphilic Janus dendrimers into vesicles with predictable layers.<sup>1</sup> As the dendrimers are relatively soft, therefore, it is excepted that the dendrimers will undergo certain degree of conformation changes to satisfy different curvatures in multilayered vesicles. Unlike the soft dendrimers, it would also be interesting to explore whether the hard and rigid molecules can self-assemble into such structures with predictable sizes and layers. Moreover, incorporation different clusters/molecules with excellent properties (e.g, electronic, luminescent) will further broaden their applications. Herein, we present the synthesis of a series of sphere-rod shaped hybrids constructed from polyoxometalates clusters (good electronic and magnetic properties) and oligofluorenes molecules (electroluminescent property, various lengths). Although the overall hybrids are quite rigid, they are observed to self-organize into ordered multilayered vesicular structures in water/organic mixed solvents. By adjusting the solvent polarity, different assembly sizes are obtained, as evidenced from both light scattering and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The TEM images further show the linear relationship between assembly size of vesicles and the number of layers. Furthermore, UV-Vis results reveal that the cross-section of oligofluorenes will have different degree of overlapping to satisfy the packing parameter of vesicular structures.<br/>

Controlled multilayered vesicular assembly via polyoxometalate-oligofluorene (sphere-rod) conjugates

2019 Spring National Meeting

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