Nanotoroid Self-Weaving from Nanofibers Assembled by a Radially Symmetrical POSS-Based Dendrimer

Toroidal nanostructures are ubiquitous in nature and have attracted considerable interest due to their unique hollow structures. However, the mysteries of their formation through artificial synthesis and self-assembly mechanisms still remain to be discovered. Herein, we report a new toroid assembly mechanism for the formation of nanotoroid from a kind of radial direction symmetrical polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)-based dendrimer that is considered as a frustrated nanotoroid structure. Curiously, the nanotoroid structure is constructed by the uncommon hierarchical self-weaving of nanofibers which assembled by a symmetry-breaking packing of building blocks caused by directional hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic effect. This research reveals a new method for toroidal architecture construction from symmetrical dendrimers and is helpful for the understanding of controllable supramolecular chiral self-assembly.