Controllable Fabrication of Various Supramolecular Nanostructures Based on Nonamphiphilic Azobenzene Derivatives and Pillar[6]arene

Various novel types of supramolecular nanostructures formed by nonamphiphilic azobenzene derivatives, G1 or G2 have been successfully fabricated, where G2 is structurally similar with G1 but an extra phenoxy group is connected with the azobenzene motif . Micellar structures can be obtained from the self-assembly of G1, which further transform to large-sized spindle structures; while nanorods can be initially formed by G2, which will gradually aggregate to form layered structures with much larger size. Moreover, it is found that upon addition of WP6, which can form inclusion-complex with G1 or G2, separately, the nonamphiphilic G1 and G2 thus converse to supramolecular amphiphiles WP6⊃G1 and WP6⊃G2, respectively. Consequently, both of the above WP6⊃G1 and WP6⊃G2 complexes can further assemble to form supramolecular binary vesicles, which will gradually transform to nanotubes (WP6⊃G1) or well-ordered nanosheets (WP6⊃G2).