Functionalized Helical Building Blocks for Nanoelectronics

Molecular building blocks are designed and created for the cis- and trans-clibrominated perylenediimides. The synthsses are simple and provide these useful materials on the gram scale. To demonstrate their synthetic versatility, these building blocks were used to create new dimeric perylenediimide helixes. Two of these helical dimers are twistacenes, and one is a helicene. Crucially, each possesses regiochemically defined functionality that allows the dimer helix to be elaborated into higher oligomers. It would be very difficult to prepare these helical PDI building blocks regioselectively without the methods described.