Hydrogen Bond-Assembled Fullerene Molecular Shuttle

A novel [2]rotaxane has been prepared in which fullerene C60 behaves as both a stopper and a photoactive unit. The amphiphilic nature of the rotaxane thread can be used to shuttle the macrocycle from close to the fullerene spheroid (in nonpolar solvents) to far away (in polar solvents). The differing location of the macrocycle in dichloromethane and dimethyl sulfoxide gives rise to effects detectable by 1H NMR and time-resolved spectroscop