Functional Carbazole‐Fullerene Complexes: A New Perspective of Carbazoles Acting as Nano‐Octopus to Capture Globular Fullerenes

Abstract Fullerene host‐guest constructs have attracted increasing attention owing to their molecular‐level hybrid arrangements. However, the usage of simple carbazolic derivatives to bind with fullerenes is rare. In this research, three novel carbazolic derivatives, containing a tunable bridging linker and carbazole units for the capturing of fullerenes, are rationally designed. Unlike the general concave‐convex interactions, fullerenes could interact with the planar carbazole subunits to form 2‐dimensional hexagonal/quadrilateral cocrystals with alternating stacking patterns of 1 : 1 or 1 : 2 stoichiometry, as well as the controllable fullerene packing modes. At the meanwhile, good electron‐transporting performances and significant photovoltaic effects were realized when a continuous C 60⋅⋅⋅ C 60 interaction channel existed. The results indicate that the introduction of such carbazolic system into fullerene receptor would provide new insights into novel fullerene host‐guest architectures for versatile applications.