Surfactant-assisted fabrication of microsheets of organic radical: interesting magnetic property and strong emission

Microstructured materials assembled from organic small molecules through non-covalent interactions have been relatively less explored but are a very fascinating field. A surfactant-assisted self-assembly process was applied to fabricate two-dimensional (2D) sheet-like microstructures of (E)-3-(3-oxo-3-phenylprop-1-enyl)-2,3´-biimidazo[1,2-a]pyridin-2´(3´H)-one (OPBIPO) radicals. The obtained results indicate that compared to the bulk OPBIPO counterpart, the coercive force of a 2D OPBIPO microsheet sample is enhanced, which can be attributed to the morphology anisotropy of microsheet structures. In addition, the photoluminescence spectra show that the emission intensity of the microsheet sample is higher than that of the bulk material. This surfactant-assisted self-assembly technology will provide useful information on the fabrication of organic radical microstructures with novel morphology-dependent magnetic behaviours.