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Letter

Nature Materials 1, 160–164 (1 November 2002) | doi:10.1038/nmat750

Cyclodextrin-threaded conjugated polyrotaxanes as insulated molecular wires with reduced interstrand interactions

Franco Cacialli , Joanne S. Wilson , Jasper J. Michels , Clement Daniel , Carlos Silva , Richard H. Friend , Nikolai Severin , Paolo Samor|[igrave]| , J|[uuml]|rgen P. Rabe , Michael J. O'Connell , Peter N. Taylor & Harry L. Anderson

Control of intermolecular interactions is crucial to the exploitation of molecular semiconductors for both organic electronics and the viable manipulation and incorporation of single molecules into nano-engineered devices. Here we explore the properties of a class of materials that are engineered at a supramolecular level by threading a conjugated macromolecule, such as poly(para-phenylene), poly(4,4|[prime]|-diphenylene vinylene) or polyfluorene through α- or β-cyclodextrin rings, so as to reduce intermolecular interactions and solid-state packing effects that red-shift and partially quench the luminescence.