Organometallic Oligomer Resolved by Radial Distribution Function of X-ray Diffraction Analysis

Abstract

Platinum-organic oligomers are actively studied for their large physical and functional properties such as solubility, processability, color, luminescence, and optoelectronics related to the different metal groups and auxiliary coligands around the metal coordination spheres. Previous studies on nanotechnology devices have shown that the structural organization of handled metallopolymer generates several 2D or 3D nano-objects, but only based on trans polymorph chains. Here we report the first self-assembly of powder cis-Pt-DEBP oligomers that shows great self-assembling ability to form nanoscale supramolecular architectures. As a powder is obtained that shows a poor crystalline organization of the aggregates, the energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction is the nondestructive technique of choice to obtain short-range order structural parameters of a single nano-object by radial distribution function analysis. The supramolecular architecture of 8-units-long chains reveals a self-assembling organization of 18 chains exhibiting an overall linear inverted open square structure. The ensemble of oligomer chains form a parallelepiped shape with small internal square cavities of approximately 3.2 nm diameter capable of hosting smaller molecules, which opens up to all applications where sieving and sensing is important. This structural investigation of short-range order materials has provided a substantial additional impetus to the field by opening up the area of self-assembled supramolecular materials based on metallopolymers for technological applications.