Tethered Helical Ladder-Type Aromatic Lactams

Tethered nonplanar aromatics (TNAs) make up an important class of nonplanar aromatic compounds showing unique features. However, the knowledge on the synthesis, structures, and properties of TNAs remains insufficient. In this work, a new type of TNAs, the tethered aromatic lactams, is synthesized via Pd-catalyzed consecutive intramolecular direct arylations. These molecules possess a helical ladder-type conjugated system of up to 13 fused rings. The overall yields ranged from 3.4 to 4.3%. The largest of the tethered aromatic lactams, 6L-Bu-C 14, demonstrates a guest-adaptive hosting capability of TNAs for the first time. When binding fullerene guests, the cavity of 6L-Bu-C 14 became more circular to better accommodate spherical fullerene molecules. The host–guest interaction is thoroughly studied by X-ray crystallography, theoretical calculations, fluorescence titration, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) titration experiments. 6L-Bu-C 14 shows stronger binding with C 70 than with C 60 due to the better convex–concave π–π interaction. P and M enantiomers of all tethered aromatic lactams show distinct and persistent chiroptical properties and demonstrate the potential of chiral TNAs as circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) emitters.