Gel-incorporated single-crystals provide unique combinational properties of long-range order and composite structures, which is desired for semiconducting and conducting materials. However, the reported gel-incorporated single-crystals are limited to insulating crystals. Here, we examine crystals of two typical semiconductors, lead sulfide (PbS) and lead iodide (Pbl2), grown from both silica gels and agarose gels. In all the four crystal-gel pairs, single-crystals of the cubic phase of PbS and the hexagonal phase of Phi2 were obtained according to the X-ray diffraction analysis. Dissolution of the gel-grown crystals exposed insoluble materials with the shape similar to the original crystals, indicative of gelincorporation inside the crystals. As such, this work creates a facile strategy to construct 3D heterostructures inside serniconducting single-crystals without destroying their long-range order.
Wei LiuYu-Jing LiuLiao ChenTao YeHong-Zheng ChenHan-Ying Li
One-dimensional crystals of fluorinated perylene diimides were achieved by the self-assembly of them via solvent-nonsolvent exchanging.The π-conjugated fluorinated perylene diimides were assembled into highly-ordered nanostructures of well-defined morphologies in organic solvents due to the π-π interaction between the aromatic cores.It was found that with more introduced F atoms,perylene diimides showed remarkably improved solubility and thus were much easier to grow into crystals,due to the increased polarity induced by the strong electron-withdrawing F group.More importantly,single crystal of N,N'-diperfluorophenyl-3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic diimide(DPFPP)was obtained,and the unit cell-dimensions of triclinic structure were determined by the selected area electron diffraction(SAED) pattems to be a=0.712 nm,b=1.072 nm,c=2.914 nm,a=97.0°,β=89.6°,γ=93.4°.Owing to most of the longest c-axis orienting nearly vertically to the long axis of the needle crystal,the molecular planes are expected to be vertical to the needle axis.
HUANG Jiachi LI Hanying MO Xiong SHI Minmin WANG Mang CHEN Hongzheng