Reveals enhanced fullerene encapsulation in carbon nanohoops, suggesting new design principles in nanomaterials.
Integrating intrinsically positively curved polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into cycloparaphenylene (CPP) frameworks remains challenging. In this study, we report a concise synthesis of a functionalized dibenzocorannulene unit via sulfone addition, followed by its seamless fusion into a CPP backbone to afford the positively curved nanohoop DBCora[10]CPP . This unique architecture creates a deep cavity with pronounced concave‐convex geometric complementarity toward fullerenes, resulting in strong binding affinities of up to 10 8 M −1 . 1 H NMR studies reveal slow host‐guest exchange behaviors in solution, while single‐crystal x‐ray diffraction unambiguously establishes the structure of C 60 @DBCora[10]CPP and reveals a distinctive octahedral packing motif featuring a free fullerene at the center. Femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy demonstrates that the precise geometric match between host and guest enables ultrafast charge‐separation followed by a persistent charge‐separated (CS) state with a lifetime of 1.5 ns. Notably, this performance is achieved in a purely host‐guest assembly without the need for mechanical bonds or bulky stoppers. These findings demonstrate how positive‐curvature engineering can simultaneously modulate fullerene recognition, host‐guest dynamics, and charge‐separation behavior, establishing a useful design principle for functional carbon nanohoops and supramolecular optoelectronic systems.
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Li et al. (2026) studied this question.
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