Synthesis and characterization of new planar butterfly-shaped fused oligothiophenes

A simple oxidative cyclization reaction was used to construct new seven-ring-fused butterfly-shaped oligothiophene backbone: dibenzothieno[1,2-b:4,3-b′:6,7-b″:9,8-b″′]tetrathiophene. The new materials show high stability and strong solid state fluorescence. X-ray crystallography results reveal that they exist in 2-D stacked structures in their crystals.