Transformable nanostructures of cholesteryl-containing rhomboidal metallacycles through hierarchical self-assembly

The precise morphological control of supramolecular structures is of pivotal importance in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology. We describe herein a successful example of transformable nanostructures from cholesteryl-containing rhomboidal metallacycles. Various interesting nanostructures such as flowers and tadpole shaped structures were successfully obtained through the hierarchical self-assembly of two well-defined rhomboidal metallacycles prepared by coordination-driven self-assembly. Variation of the linker structure and solvent composition was found to trigger such drastic morphological changes of aggregates as revealed by microscopy studies.