Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Nanowires on the Surface by Metallo-Supramolecular Truncated Cuboctahedra
Heng Wang, Kun Wang, Yaping Xu, Wu Wang, Shaohua Chen, Matthew Hart, Łukasz Wojtas, Li‐Peng Zhou, Lin Gan, Xuzhou Yan, Yiming Li, Juhoon Lee, Xian‐Sheng Ke, Xu-Qing Wang, Chang-Wei Zhang, Shasha Zhou, Tianyou Zhai, Hai‐Bo Yang, Ming Wang, Jiaqing He, Qing‐Fu Sun, Bingqian Xu, Yang Jiao, Peter J. Stang, Jonathan L. Sessler, Xiaopeng Li
Abstract
Parastichy, the spiral arrangement of plant organs, is an example of the long-range apparent order seen in biological systems. These ordered arrangements provide scientists with both an aesthetic challenge and a mathematical inspiration. Synthetic efforts to replicate the regularity of parastichy may allow for molecular-scale control over particle arrangement processes. Here we report the packing of a supramolecular truncated cuboctahedron (TCO) into double-helical (DH) nanowires on a graphite surface with a non-natural parastichy pattern ascribed to the symmetry of the TCOs and interactions between TCOs. Such a study is expected to advance our understanding of the design inputs needed to create complex, but precisely controlled, hierarchical materials. It is also one of the few reported helical packing structures based on Platonic or Archimedean solids since the discovery of the Boerdijk-Coxeter helix. As such, it may provide experimental support for studies of packing theory at the molecular level.