Aggregation of a C60-didodecyloxybenzene dyad: structure, dynamics, and mechanism of vesicle growth.

The mechanism of formation and the stability of spontaneously formed vesicles upon self-assembly of a partially ground-state charge-separated, nonpolar−polar−nonpolar fullerene(C60)-didodecyloxybenzene (DDB) dyad in binary solvent mixtures requiring a critical dielectric constant of ∼30 are reported. Molecular interactions giving rise to defined vesicles with in-plane bilayer packing are detailed from the predominant van der Waals and electrostatic interactions existing on the dyad's framework. The vesicles are formed with a large bending rigidity of 18kBT, which on further extraction into a polar water medium resulted in uniform spheres that corroborated well with the theoretical predictions. Furthermore, the water-extracted spherical dyad aggregates at an increased dyad concentration, leading to the formation of giant micrometer-sized fractals following diffusion-limited cluster aggregation. These dyad aggregates act as efficient quenchers of fluorescent dyes with a quenching rate of 4.6 × 1013 M-1 s-1.