Nanoscopic Fibrous Assemblies Made of Metallophthalocyanine‐Terminated Amphiphilic Polymers

Abstract
Atom‐transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of acrylates from the initiator‐modified zinc phthalocyanine yielded amphiphilic, phthalocyanine‐terminated polymers with a narrow molecular‐weight distribution. The disklike phthalocyanine moiety was incorporated into one end of the polymer chain. We investigated the aggregation behavior of phthalocyanine‐terminated polymers in solution and in the solid state by using UV‐visible, FT‐IR, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and temperature‐controlled powder X‐ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. Amphiphilic phthalocaynine‐terminated polymers that possess a poly[tri(ethylene glycol)methyl ether acrylate] chain aggregate in methanol to form a physical gel. Images from atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicate that the physical gel contains a dense fibrous network structure, in which the zinc phthalocyanine groups were stacked into one‐dimensional columnar aggregates through intermolecular π–π interactions between the π‐conjugated phthalocyanines and through van der Waals interaction of alkyl chains.

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