We describe the fabrication of a densely packed ultrathin film of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) at a liquid–liquid interface. The MWCNTs, which were synthesized using an anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) film as a template, were dispersed in water. Then hexane was added to the dispersion to create the liquid–liquid interface. The MWCNTs were smoothly assembled at the interface to form an ultrathin film when ethanol was added to the MWCNT water dispersion/hexane solution. The ultrathin film can be transferred onto a solid substrate using the Langmuir–Blodgett deposition technique. With addition of 10 vol% ethanol to the solution, an ultrathin film of MWCNTs with coverage of about 70% was fabricated. The multilayer film was fabricated by repeated deposition of the ultrathin film.

In this paper, we report that poly(N-dodecylacrylamide) (pDDA) formed a well-ordered lamellar structure by annealing in humid conditions. Differential scanning calorimetry measurements of pDDA showed that the crystallized part of the dodecyl side chain in nanodomains melted at −28.5 °C and a glass transition temperature of 73.6 °C, indicating that pDDA is an amorphous polymer at room temperature (20 °C). Thin films of pDDA were prepared by spin coating. Two-dimensional grazing-angle incidence X-ray diffraction (GI-XRD) measurements indicated that the film is composed of randomly oriented lamellar domains. When the film was annealed under 98% relative humidity at 60 °C for 24 h, the GI-XRD imaging plate showed spot-like diffraction in the out-of-plane direction with second-order and third-order peaks, indicating that the lamellar plane is oriented parallel to the substrate plane. The lamellar spacing was determined to be 3.25 nm from the Bragg peak. Fourier transform infrared measurements of lamellar structured films showed that the dodecyl side chains are aligned perpendicular to the lamellar plane.

The amorphous nature of a series of zinc–porphyrins bearing two 3,4,5-tri((S)-3,7-dimethyloctyloxy)phenyl groups at the meso-positions, named “porphyrin glass”, were tolerant of π-conjugation engineering in ethynylene-linked dimers. The butadiyne-linked dimeric porphyrin glass formed an intermolecular excimer, which exhibited bright and exceptionally long-lived, near-infrared (NIR) luminescence at approximately 970 nm in the solid state. Therefore, porphyrin glasses overcame a general bottleneck for NIR-luminescence, such as an undesired π-stacked aggregation of a large porphyrin plane in addition to the energy gap law. The formation of amorphous molecular glasses from a series of meso-ethynylene-conjugated zinc–porphyrins, named “porphyrin glass”, is described. The butadiyne-linked dimeric porphyrin glass formed an intermolecular excimer, which exhibited solid-state, near-infrared (NIR) luminescence at approximately 970 nm.

A metal-lustrous self-standing film, named “porphyrin foil”, formed from a glass-forming polymeric porphyrin.

As described in this paper, phosphonic-acid-containing double-decker-shaped polyhedral silsesquioxane (PHOS-DDSQ) was synthesized and the proton conductivity of the PHOS-DDSQ cast film was studied under humid and non-humid conditions. To synthesize PHOS-DDSQ, double-decker-shaped polyhedral silsesquioxane (DDSQ) was initially reacted with di(ethylene glycol) (DEG) vinyl ether using hydrosilylation reaction to attach four DEG units to one DDSQ (4DEG-DDSQ). Subsequently, a phosphate esterification of hydroxyl groups in 4DEG-DDSQ was carried out using POCl₃. NMR, XPS, and MALDI-TOF MS spectra and titration measurements revealed that the phosphate esterification connected two DEG units to form a crown-ether-like structure. This structure prevents hydrolysis of the phosphate ester bond. PHOS-DDSQ showed high thermal stability, with decomposition temperature exceeding 220 °C, because of its inorganic DDSQ core. A uniform film of PHOS-DDSQ can be fabricated by drop casting. The cast film showed high proton conductivity (0.12 S cm⁻¹) under humid conditions, which is comparable to that of a Nafion® membrane. Moreover, the cast film offered good proton conductivity under non-humid conditions (3.6 × 10⁻⁴ S cm⁻¹ at 170 °C). The conductivity and thermal stability indicate that PHOS-DDSQ is a good candidate for use as a proton-conductive membrane in hydrated type fuel cells as well as fuel cells operated at intermediate temperatures (100–200 °C) under non-humid conditions.