Porous Porphyrin Nanoarchitectures on Surfaces

Controlling the size and the growth direction of porous hybrid objects - metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) or porous coordination polymers (PCPs) - at the nanoscale is a critical issue for enabling their use in a number of potential applications that have arisen from the current remarkable activity in studying such porous materials. This microreview describes the recent progress in the design, growth, and characterization of multidimensional nanoarchitectures by employing porphyrin-based components. The versatility of the sequential bottom-up fabrication process, which uses multitopic molecular building units assembled by appropriately chosen linkers, is suitable to be extended to the formation of a rich variety of nanostructures endowed with pores on surfaces.