Self-Assembly of Phenanthrene Oligomers into Nanotubes with Light-Harvesting Properties

Supramolecular polymerization enables the construction of highly organized chromophore arrays and thus is a method to build up artificial light-harvesting antennae. In previous work we described the formation of a one-dimensional supramolecular polymer which absorbs light and effectively transfer the excitation energy to an acceptor. Assembly of a two-dimensional light-harvesting antenna would increase the number of ordered chromophores for energy collection. In this poster we will present results for a 2,7-disubstituted phenanthrene oligomer which forms tubular structures in aqueous medium. Those assemblies are only weakly fluorescent but the addition of minute amounts of acceptor results in a strong increase of fluorescence