A highly modular and convergent approach for the synthesis of stimulant-responsive heteroligated cofacial porphyrin tweezer complexes.

The synthesis of new hemilabile phosphine ligands and their reaction with [Rh(COE)2Cl]2 to form dissymmetric heteroligated tweezer complexes using a halide-induced ligand rearrangement reaction are reported. These complexes can undergo reactions with small-molecule ligands and elemental anions quantitatively in situ, which serve to regulate the porphyrin-porphyrin distances and interactions within the assembly.