Japan Science and Technology Agency, Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology, Isobe Degenerate π-Integration Project andAdvanced Institute for Materials Research, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8577, Japan; andDepartment of Chemistry, Tohoku University, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8578, Japan.
Department of Chemistry, Tohoku University, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8578, Japan.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jun 10;111(23):8374-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1406518111. Epub 2014 May 27.
A supramolecular combination of carbon nanotube and fullerene, so-called a peapod, has attracted much interest, not solely because of its physical properties but also for its unique assembled structures of carbonaceous entities. However, the detailed structural information available was not sufficient for in-depth understanding of its structural chemistry or for exploratory research inspired by novel physical phenomena, mainly because of the severely inhomogeneous nature of currently available carbon nanotubes. We herein report solid-state structures of a molecular peapod. This structure, solved with a belt-persistent finite carbon nanotube molecule at the atomic level by synchrotron X-ray diffraction, revealed the presence of a smooth, inflection-free Hirshfeld surface inside the tube, and the smoothness permitted dynamic motion of the C60 guest molecule even in the solid state. This precise structural information may inspire the molecular design of carbonaceous machines assembled purely through van der Waals contacts between two neutral molecules.
碳纳米管和富勒烯的超分子组合，即所谓的“豆荚”，引起了人们的极大兴趣，不仅因为其物理性质，还因为其独特的碳质实体组装结构。然而，目前可用的详细结构信息不足以深入了解其结构化学，也不足以激发受新物理现象启发的探索性研究，主要是因为目前可用的碳纳米管具有严重的不均匀性。我们在此报告一种分子豆荚的固态结构。这个结构是通过同步加速器 X 射线衍射在原子水平上用一个具有带持续性的有限碳纳米管分子解决的，它揭示了管内存在一个光滑、无拐点的 Hirshfeld 表面，这种光滑性允许 C60 客体分子即使在固态下也能进行动态运动。这种精确的结构信息可能会激发通过两个中性分子之间的范德华相互作用组装而成的纯碳质机器的分子设计。
