The Honeysuckle and the Bindweed Revisited: Synthesis and Stereochemistry of Extended Helical Structures from Coordination Complexes

We report structural studies of a chiral tridentate ligand which forms helical cubanes with cobalt(II) and manganese(II). A quadruple helicate with (P)‐chirality is obtained using a (S)‐ligand with cobalt(II) but the ligand binds manganese(II) in one of two possible orientations and either (P)‐ or (M)‐quadruple helicates may be observed for a given ligand enantiomer. The helicates may be linked into extended structures by p‐nitrobenzoate capping ligands which show stacking interactions with neighbouring complexes. With cobalt(II) we find an extended helical structure with (M)‐chirality linking helicates which themselves have (P)‐chirality. With manganese(II) we observe a remarkable structure with extended (M)‐helices coexisting with extended (P)‐helices.