A palladium-hinged organometallic square with a perfect-sized cavity for the encapsulation of three heteroguests

A nanometer-sized tetrapalladium metallosquare with a pyrene-bisimidazolylidene ligand was found to display a perfect-sized cavity for the encapsulation of three heteroguests, enabling the formation of quintuple D-A-D-A-D stacks. The encapsulating properties of the metallosquare are clearly determined by the presence of the pyrene panels, which endow the metallosquare with a three-dimensional shape, and also behave as effective antennae for pi-stacking interactions.