Amphiphilic molecular design as a rational strategy for tailoring bicontinuous electron donor and acceptor arrays:: Photoconductive liquid crystalline oligothiophene-C60 dyads

Temperature range a photoconducting smectic. A liquid crystal having bicontinuous arrays of densely packed donor and acceptors units. In contrast, when modified with only paraffinic wedges(1(Lipo)), the dyad forms a smectic A liquid crystalline mesophase, which however is poorly conductive. As indicated by an absorption spectral feature along with a synchron radiation small-angle X-ray scattering profile. 1(Lipo) in the lamellar structure does not adopt a uniform head/tail orientation. Such defective donor and acceptor arrays likely contain a large number of trapping sites, leading to short-lived charge carriers, as observed by a flash photolysis time-resolved microwave conductivity study.