Enhancing the supramolecular stability of monolayers by combining dipolar with amphiphilic motifs: a case of amphiphilic push–pull-thiazole

Equipping a thiazole dye with push and pull moieties adds dipolar intermolecular interactions and two hydrophilic anchors to a centrally anchored p-stacking and otherwise mono-amphiphilic dye. We show that, despite the resulting irregular shape of the tripodal amphiphile, the enhanced intermolecular interactions and amphiphilicity yield smooth and stable thin films. Furthermore, we present a first approach for deriving supramolecular binding energies from the Langmuir–Blodgett hysteresis data.