Dynamic assembly of porphyrin wires trapped on a highly oriented pyrolitic graphite surface.

Carefully designed porphyrin building blocks assemble through selective imidazole binding in various solvents to form linear multiporphyrin objects. From a dynamic mixture of monomers, dimers, and oligomers, linear objects were observed on a highly oriented pyrolitic graphite (HOPG) surface. On the surface, the objects' morphology clearly depended on the solvent used for deposition and was modified upon heating.