Tuning the depth of bowl-shaped phosphine hosts: capsule and pseudo-cage architectures in host–guest complexes with C60 fullerene

Bowl-shaped phosphine molecules, whose bowl geometry can be controlled by a variation of the axial substituent, were synthesized, and used as host molecules to encapsulate C60. Host molecules with relatively shallow bowls formed a chiral capsule, while hosts with deeper bowls formed an achiral pseudo-cage.