Synthesis and self-assembly properties of fullerene/porphyrin-phthalocyanine and fullerene/bis-phthalocyanine triads

Abstract : In this work, we report on the synthesis and characterization of two fulleropyrrolidines bearing porphyrin/phthalocyanine and bis-phthalocyanine tweezers. The self-assembly properties in different solvents have been investigated by AFM and SEM. When deposited on surface from dichloromethane solutions, the fullerene derivatives formed aggregates of ca. 4–8 nm in height while hollow nanospheres with diameters of ca. 300–1000 nm are obtained from crystallization attempts.