Tuning Growth of Low-Dimensional Organic Nanostructures for Efficient Optical Waveguide Applications

A novel amphiphilic porphyrin derivative DOCP-Zn has been synthesized and utilized to construct tunable nanostructures from 0D to 1D by controlling the axial coordination of zinc porphyrin with 4,4′-bipyridine. SEM images indicated that patterns between 0D nanospheres and 1D nanorods or nanoslices can be reversibly converted by the construction or destroy of the axial coordination interaction. This facile approach provided a new method for controlling the nanostructure morphologies and dimension by patterns conversion. The photoluminescence microscopy images indicated the 1D nanorods material has the potential application as nanoscale photonic elements.