Amphiphiles, chiral molecular self-assembly

The monolayer in a multi-component system has been attracting attention from the viewpoints of fundamental understanding on molecular self-assembly [1], as well as its applications for surface modifiers [2], biosensing [3-5], photoswitching [6] and electrical devices [7]. In this system, whether amphiphilic molecules are miscible or immiscible in the monolayer is important for its properties. Therefore, a systematic tmder-standing on the phase separation mechanism in a mixed monolayer appears to be an essential step in the design and constmction of functionalized structures in the system. The phase separation in a monolayer state depends on many factors involving electrostatic interaction, molecular chirality and so on besides thermodynamic parameters such as the subphase temperature and surface pressure. Hence, for... 

Besides molecular shapes and amphiphilicity, chirality also has a large influence on LC self assembly, leading to series of LC phases with helical superstructures, reduced symmetry, and chirality induced frustration [43-46]. 

Figure 10 Self-assembled nanotubes can be obtained through a rolling mechanism (chiral molecular packing) or packing directly from the monomer. The structures of amphiphilic molecules used in nanotube formation (a) diacetylenic phospholipids, (b) diacetylenic N-aldonamides, (c, d, and e) glucose glycolipids, (f) sphingolipids, (g) glucophospholipid amphiphiles, (h) amphiphile with a serine head. R and R groups represent a variety of alkyl, alkenyl, or alkynyl groups. (Reproduced with permission from Ref. 52. The Chemical...

The systems described above formed linearly extended, fibrous self-assemblies, although the morphological structures depended on amphiphiles. The molecular arrangement in fibers were maintained by the formation of concentric multilamellar bilayer, besides hydrophobic interaction and hydrogen bonding, except C Asp fibers with chiral character. The assemblies underwent temperature-dependent fibril-vesicle transition. The fibril-vesicle transition resulted from the rearrangement of bilayers. Generally, multilamellar layers were diminished in ves-... 

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