Abstract
Self-sorting on surfaces is one of the big challenges that must be addressed in preparing the organic materials of the future. Here, we introduce a theoretical framework for templated self-sorting on surfaces, and validate it experimentally. In our approach, the transcription of two-dimensional information encoded in a monolayer on the surface into three-dimensional supramolecular architectures is quantified by the intrinsic templation efficiency, a thickness-independent value describing the fidelity of transcription per layer. The theoretical prediction that exceedingly high intrinsic efficiencies will be needed to experimentally observe templated self-sorting is then confirmed experimentally. Intrinsic templation efficiencies of up to 97%, achieved with a newly introduced templated synthesis strategy, result in maximal 47% effective templation efficiency at a thickness of 70 layers. The functional relevance of surface-templated self-sorting and meaningful dependences of templation efficiencies on structural modifications are demonstrated.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank D. Jeannerat, A. Pinto and S. Grass for NMR measurements, the Sciences Mass Spectrometry (SMS) platform for mass spectrometry services, and the University of Geneva, the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Investigator), the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Chemical Biology and the Swiss NSF for financial support. E.O. acknowledges a Sciex Fellowship.
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E.O., M.L. and N.T.L. synthesized compounds. E.O. and M.L. carried out the templation studies on the surfaces. N.S. and S.M. directed the study, and contributed to the design, execution and interpretation of the experiments and writing of the manuscript.
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Orentas, E., Lista, M., Lin, NT. et al. A quantitative model for the transcription of 2D patterns into functional 3D architectures. Nature Chem 4, 746–750 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1429
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1429
