Naphthodithiophene Diimide Based Chiral π‐Conjugated Nanopillar Molecules

Design and Synthesis of New Type of Macrocyclic Architectures Used for Optoelectronic Materials and Supramolecular Chemistry

Supramolecular chemistry has received much attention for decades. Macrocyclic architectures as representative receptors play a vital role in supramolecular chemistry and are applied in many fields such as supramolecular assembly and host-guest recognition. However, the classical macrocycles generally lack functional groups in the scaffolds, which limit their further applications, especially in optoelectronic materials. Therefore, developing a new design principle is not only essential to better understand macrocyclic chemistry and the supramolecular behaviors, but also further expand their applications in many research fields. In recent years, the doping compounds with main-group heteroatoms (B, N, S, O, P) into the carbon-based π-conjugated macrocycles offered a new strategy to build macrocyclic architectures with unique optoelectronic properties. In particular, the energy gaps and redox behavior can be effectively tuned by incorporating heteroatoms into the macrocyclic scaffolds. In this Minireview, we briefly summarize the design and synthesis of new macrocycles, and further discuss the related applications in optoelectronic materials and supramolecular chemistry.

A Conjugated Figure-of-Eight Oligoparaphenylene Nanohoop with Adaptive Cavities Derived from Cyclooctatetrathiophene Core

A fully conjugated figure-of-eight nanohoop is presented with facile synthesis. The molecule's lemniscular skeleton features the combination of two strained oligoparaphenylene loops and a flexible cyclooctatetrathiophene core. Its rigid yet guest-adaptive cavities enable the formation of the peanut-like 1:2 host-guest complexes with C₆₀ or C₇₀ , which have been confirmed by X-ray crystallography and characterized in solution. Further computational studies suggest notable geometric variations and non-covalent interactions of the cavities upon binding with different fullerenes, as well as overall conjugation comparable to cycloparaphenylenes.