Nanoscale carbon materials (i.e., fullerenes and carbon nanotubes) are an attractive platform for applications in optoelectronics and photovoltaics. [1] The presence of extended, delocalized p-electron systems makes these carbon materials very useful for managing charge transfer and charge transport, when combined, for example, with photoexcited electron donors, such as metalloporphyrins. [2,3] This arrangement might lead to novel, highly efficient photoelectrochemical cells for applications such as photochemical water splitting and the reduction of CO 2 to fuels. Despite the interesting properties that single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) display, there are numerous obstacles in the way of solubilizing SWNTs and integrating SWNTs into fully functional donor-acceptor constructs. Controlled modification of their surface with functional groups, such as chromophores, [4] electron donors, [5] biomolecules, [6] is required to realize their potential in nanotechnology.
In nature, the complex superstructure that is found for many functional architectures is the unique result of selfassembling and self-organizing smaller building blocks. [7] To succeed in fabricating functional systems from simple molecular units the constituent components must be programmed to self-organize into hierarchical structures.
Herein, the systematic immobilization of the octasodium salt of 5,15-bis-[2',6'-bis{2'',2''-bis(carboxy)ethyl}methyl-4'tert-butylpheny]-10,20-bis(4'-tert-butylphenyl)porphyrin (H 2 P 8À ) [8] and the related zinc complex (ZnP 8À ) [8] -as oligo-