A Dodecameric Porphyrin Wheel Xiaobin Peng, † Naoki Aratani, † Akihiko Takagi, ‡ Takuya Matsumoto,* ,‡ Tomoji Kawai,* ,‡ In-Wook Hwang, § Tae Kyu Ahn, § Dongho Kim,* ,§ and Atsuhiro Osuka* ,† Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto UniVersity, Core Research for EVolutional Science and Technology (CREST), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan, The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (ISIR), Osaka UniVersity, Core Research for EVolutional Science and Technology (CREST), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), 8-1, Mihogaoka, Ibaragi, Osaka 567-0047, Japan, and Center for Ultrafast Optical Characteristics Control and Department of Chemistry, Yonsei UniVersity, Seoul 120-749, Korea Received October 29, 2003; E-mail: osuka@kuchem.kyoto-u.ac.jp; matsumoto@sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp; kawai@sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp; dongho@yonsei.ac.kr The design and synthesis of light-harvesting systems that rival those in photosynthesis has been an important issue, which may require the organization of many pigments in an elaborate arrange- ment. Inspired by the wheel-like architectures of photosynthetic pigments (LH2 and LH1), 1 particular attention has been focused on the construction of covalently linked cyclic porphyrin arrays, which may aid the understanding of the mechanisms of the energy transfer or find new applications as optoelectronic material. 2 The synthetic arrays prepared thus far contain at most six porphyrins, 3 whereas B800 and B850 in LH2 consist of eight or nine bacterio- chlorophyll a (Bchla) molecules and eight or nine dimeric subunits of Bchla, respectively, and B870 in LH1 has recently shown to consist of 15 pairs of dimeric Bchla, 1e hence posing a further synthetic challenge. Recently we have explored the Ag(I)-promoted meso-meso coupling reaction of 5,15-diaryl Zn(II)-porphyrins, 4a which is useful, enabling the syntheses of a variety of porphyrin arrays including 3D-extending windmill porphyrin arrays 4b and extremely long porphyrin arrays. 4c In this communication, we report the synthesis of a dodecameric porphyrin wheel. To program curvature in the porphyrin array, we employed 1,3- phenylene-bridged diporphyrin ZA as a building block in the coupling reaction. ZA was prepared in 56% yield from Suzuki coupling of boronate 1 with 1,3-diiodobenzene. 5 Coupling reaction of ZA with AgPF 6 (1.0 equiv) followed by separation over size- exclusion chromatography gave porphyrin tetramer 2ZA (16%), hexamer 3ZA (8%), and octamer 4ZA (3%). Similar coupling reaction of 2ZA gave 4ZA (18%), 6ZA (9%), and 8ZA (4%). The coupling reaction proceeded with high regioselectivity only at meso-meso positions. All these products were characterized by 1 H NMR, MALDI-TOF mass, UV-vis, and fluorescence spectra. Then, we attempted the intramolecular cyclization of the linear porphyrin 12-mer 6ZA. Under very dilute conditions (9 × 10 -7 M), 6ZA was treated with 0.5 equiv of AgPF 6 for 48 h at room temperature. Progress of the reaction was monitored by analytical GPC-HPLC, which revealed the formation of a discrete product that eluted as a shoulder at 12.3 min, later than 6ZA (11.9 min) (Figure 1, inset). This product isolated by repeated preparative GPC-HPLC in 12% yield together with the recovery of 6ZA (51%) was assigned to a wheel-like dodecameric porphyrin array, C6ZA, on the basis of the following facts. (1) The product exhibits the parent ion peak at 11167 (calcd for C 708 H 816 N 48 O 24 Zn 12 , m/z ) 11167) in MALDI-TOF mass, indicating its dodecameric porphyrin constitution. (2) Despite a small difference in the molecular weight, a distinct difference in the retention time on GPC-HPLC from 6ZA indicates a substantial difference in the hydrodynamic volume, which may arise from an overall drastic change in molecular shape. (3) The 1 H NMR spectrum is quite simple, featuring only a single set of a porphyrin subunit without the edge meso-protons (Sup- porting Information). Importantly, the outer and inner porphyrinic -protons and the eight aromatic protons on the meso-aryl substit- uents are all distinguished because of restricted rotation. (4) Finally, the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) image exhibits a clear wheel-like structure. A dilute solution of C6ZA in CH 2 Cl 2 was sprayed by using a pulse injection method onto a clean flat Cu(100) surface obtained by cycles of annealing and Ar-ion sputtering. 6,7 In situ STM measurements were performed at room temperature in ultrahigh vacuum (<10 -10 mbar) in a constant height mode. The STM images of C6ZA taken at Vs (sample bias voltage) ) 1.5 V and I (tunneling current) ) 37 pA reveal ring spots with discrete hollow. An average height of the STM images estimated on the basis of the height histogram is ca. 2.9 ( 1.2 Å, 8 and an average † Kyoto University. ‡ Osaka University. § Yonsei University. Chart 1 Figure 1. STM images of C6ZA on Cu(100). Published on Web 03/18/2004 4468 9 J. AM. CHEM. SOC. 2004, 126, 4468-4469 10.1021/ja0392972 CCC: $27.50 © 2004 American Chemical Society