Tuning the Intercage Distance in Charge‐Regulated Blackberry‐Type Assemblies through Host–Guest Chemistry

AbstractCharged or neutral adamantane guests can be encapsulated into the cavity of cationic metal–organic M6L4 (bpy‐cage, M=PdII(2,2′‐bipyridine), L=2,4,6‐tri(4‐pyridyl)‐1,3,5‐triazine) cages through hydrophobic interaction. These encapsulations can provide an approach to control the net charge on the resulting cage–guest complexes and regulate their charge‐dominated assembly into hollow spherical blackberry‐type assemblies in dilute solutions: encapsulation of neutral guests will hardly influence their self‐assembly process, including the blackberry structure size, which is directly related to the intercage distance in the assembly; whereas encapsulating negatively (positively) charged guests resulted in a shorter (longer) intercage distance with larger (smaller) assemblies formed. Therefore, the host–guest chemistry approach can be used to tune the intercage distance accurately.