Self-assembled half-sandwich polyhedral cages via flexible Schiff-base ligands: an unusual macrocycle-to-cage conversion.

An edge-directed strategy was adopted to construct highly ordered polyhedral structures using flexible functions. Half-sandwich M6(L1)4 octahedral and M8(L2)4 cubic cages have been assembled by flexible Schiff-base ligands upon coordination to Cp*Rh(iii) organometallic acceptors. In particular, the rearrangement from a Rh(iii)-based half-sandwich M2(HL1)2 macrocycle to M6(L1)4 cage was found to occur in a solution.