title: From spherical to leaf-like morphologies: tunable supramolecular assembly of alkynylgold(I) complexes through variations of the alkyl chain length.
abstract: A series of luminescent polynuclear alkynylgold(I) complexes with different lengths of alkyl chains attached at the N-heterocyclic carbene moieties has been synthesised and demonstrated to display intriguing self-assembly behaviours through a cooperative growth mechanism. Variation of the alkyl chain length was found to cause drastic morphological differences in the aggregates and to strongly affect the thermodynamic parameters as revealed by the nucleation-elongation model.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Functional Materials (Areas of Excellence Scheme, University Grant Committee (Hong Kong)) and Department of Chemistry, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Eugene Yau-Hin
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Hok-Lai
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Vivian Wing-Wah
authors.initials: VW
authors.lastname: Yam
keywords: cooperativity; gold; pi-conjugated systems; self-assembly; supramolecular chemistry