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Abstract

The self-assembly of discrete molecules into functional nanostructures has become a major area of research in the past few decades. At the nanoscale, materials often exhibit unique properties that make them interesting for applications in electronics, optics, drug delivery, and many more areas. Non-covalent (supramolecular) interactions such as H-bonding or π-stacking are often utilized to promote self-assembly. Typically, nanomaterials formed using supramolecular approaches have high dispersities, with no control over the length or sizes of the nanostructures created. The next step forward is, thus, to create nanomaterials with well-defined sizes, which is essential for certain applications. The incorporation of metal ions into the molecular design provides access to catalytic, electrochemical, magnetic, and photochemical properties. Supramolecular self-assembly of metal complexes into ordered structures greatly expands the scope of potential applications. These materials can be applied across diverse fields, such as OLEDs, sensors, semiconductors, and drug delivery systems. This thesis explores the controlled self-assembly of metal complexes into nanostructures of different morphologies. By attaching these complexes to a benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxamide (BTA) core, additional hydrogen bonding interactions were introduced to facilitate aggregation. Chapter 2 details the exploration of the self-assembly behaviour of a tris-Ni(II)-salphen complex, which aggregates into well-defined nanofibres with low dispersities. This work was then expanded to synthesize an analogous tris-Cu(II)-salphen complex, which was expected to show similar self-assembly behaviour as the Ni(II) complex. The Cu(II) complex, however, does not aggregate and also inhibits the aggregation of the Ni(II) complex on co-assembly (Chapter 3). Finally, Chapter 4 depicts how modifications to the BTA core affect self-assembly. Attaching a Pt(II) complex to the modified BTA core led to the formation of photoactivated toroidal nanostructures, with self-assembly occurring only in the presence of light.