A new class of tunable molecular wires has been made by researchers in the US. The team has made new cyano-functionalised oligoenes and they report the longest oligoene crystal ever made.
Cyano groups decrease oligoenes’ band gaps and stabilise them for study under normal laboratory conditions while preserving the conjugation along the poly-olefin backbone. This particular class of oligoenes has not been studied much.
Functionalised oligoenes are ideal structures for nanoscale electronic and structural components and they could be used in photovoltaics because their band gaps are easy to tune and their absorptions cover the visible spectrum.
Reference:
Functionalizing Molecular Wires: A Tunable Class of α,ω-diphenyl- μ,ν-dicyano-oligoenes
J S Meisner et al, Chem. Sci., 2012
DOI: 10.1039/c2sc00770c
