Formation of Self-organized Structures of Hybrid Amorphous Materials Based on Polyhedral Silsesquioxanes

Abstract

The formation of self-organized structures of organic-inorganic hybrid amorphous molecules based on polyhedral silsesquioxanes (POSS) is reported. The hybrid materials were synthesized using POSS as the inorganic core and cyanobiphenyl (CBP) as the organic substituent. The type of structure formed depends on the length of the alkyl spacer used to connect the POSS and CBP groups. The hybrid amorphous material with an alkyl spacer consisting of eleven methylene units resulted in Voronoi-like dot patterns, the size of which are easily controlled by varying the thickness of the initial films.