Rubrene-Directed Structural Transformation of Fullerene (C 60 ) Microsheets to Nanorod Arrays with Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Properties.

One-dimensional (1D) nanostructures possess huge potential in electronics and optoelectronics, but the axial alignment of such 1D structures is still a challenging task. Herein, we report a simple method that enables two-dimensional (2D) C 60 microsheets to evolve into highly ordered nanorod arrays using rubrene as a structure-directing agent. The structural transformation is accomplished by adding droplets of rubrene- m -xylene solution onto C 60 microsheets and allowing the m -xylene solvent to evaporate naturally. In sharp contrast, when rubrene is absent from m -xylene, randomly oriented C 60 nanorods are produced. Spectroscopic and microscopic characterizations collectively indicate a rather plausible transformation mechanism that the close lattice match allows the epitaxial growth of rubrene on C 60 microsheets, followed by the reassembly of dissolved C 60 along the aligned rubrene due to the intermolecular charge-transfer (CT) interactions, leading to the formation of ordered nanorod arrays. Due to the aligned structures and the CT interactions between rubrene and C 60 , the photocurrent density of the nanorod arrays is improved by 31.2% in the UV region relative to the randomly oriented counterpart. This work presents a facile and effective strategy for the construction of ordered fullerene nanorod arrays, providing new ideas for the alignment of fullerene and other relevant organic microstructures.