Effects of different H⁺ sources on formation of J aggregation of cyanine dye

Abstract

Different H⁺ sources were selected to investigate their effects on the spectroscopic properties and the morphology of cyanine dye. The structure of the dye shows that it belongs to one of the sulphonates. It was found that, through UV-vis spectra, stronger acids would promote the cyanine dye to form J aggregates, while the weaker acids did not make the dye self-aggregated. Based on prior experimental results, the paper hypothesizes that stronger acids could transfer the dye from sulphonate to sulphonic acid. Moreover, the morphology of J aggregates treated with stronger acid was observed, using TEM and SEM, to be interlaced branches with average diameters of ∼100–200 nm.

Keywords:

• ACIDS
• J AGGREGATION
• CYANINE DYE
• ONE-DIMENSIONAL NANOWIRES