Stereospecificity and Self-Selectivity in the Generation of a Chiral Molecular Tetrahedron by Metal-Assisted Self-Assembly

The chiral bidentate ligand (S,S)-1 reacts stereospecifically with Ga3+ to generate a [Ga4(L)6]12− molecular tetrahedron although similar ligands generate [Ga2(L)3]6− complexes. The assembly of this complex is self-selective as a racemic mixture of the ligand sorts by chirality to generate an enantiomeric pair of homochiral complexes.