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Updated: Jul 6, 2026
Preparation of a Corannulene-functionalized Hexahelicene by Copper(I)-catalyzed Alkyne-azide Cycloaddition of Nonplanar Polyaromatic Units
Published on: September 18, 2016
C60/corannulene on Cu(110): a surface-supported bistable buckybowl-buckyball host-guest system
Wende Xiao1, Daniele Passerone, Pascal Ruffieux
1nanotech@surfaces Laboratory, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, Feuerwerkerstrasse 39, 3602 Thun, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Corannulene (COR) buckybowls were proposed as near ideal hosts for fullerene C60, but direct complexation of C60 and COR has remained a challenge in supramolecular chemistry. We report the formation of surface-supported COR-C60 host-guest complexes by deposition of C60 onto a COR lattice on Cu(110). Variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy studies reveal two distinctly different states of C60 on the COR host lattice, with different binding energies and bowl-ball separations. The transition from a weakly bound precursor state to a strongly bound host-guest complex is found to be thermally activated. Simple model calculations show that this bistability originates from a subtle interplay between homo- and heteromolecular interactions.
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