カーボンナノチューブの筒内平滑曲面：炭素性分子ベアリングの構造化学

抄録

Carbonaceous entities possessing tubular and spherical shapes spontaneously form a host−guest complex. This supramolecular complex, so-called a peapod, is unique among host−guest pairs in that it is assembled solely by van der Waals interactions at the concave−convex interface of sp²-carbon networks. Recently, a molecular version of this supramolecular system revealed the presence of the extremely tight association concomitantly with the dynamic motions of the guest in apolar media. An atomic-level structure of the molecular peapod is revealed by a crystallographic method with synchrotron X-ray source to show the presence of an inflection-free surface inside the tubular molecule. Enjoying rotational freedom at this smooth surface, the guest fullerene molecule rolls dynamically even in the solid state.