Complexes formed between porphyrins and cyclodextrins are among the most fascinating targets of hostguest complexes. So far, the structural details have been discussed on the basis of the solution properties. However, the real complex structure determined from single-crystal analysis is not known up to the present. In this paper, we report the first successful example for formation of a single crystal and its X-ray analysis. We believe that the resultant dye-oriented crystalline material would lead to novel hostguest chemistry applicable to new photo and electronic devices.It is well-known that porphyrin derivatives act as important players in various new photo-and electrochemical research fields. Particularly, their role in the design of solar cells mimicking the natural photosynthetic system is a conspicuous example.1 In fact, many researchers have so far constructed various artificial light-harvesting systems and charge separation systems utilizing functionalized porphyrins and their assemblies.2,3 Through these studies, it is now well-established that to control the aggregation mode of porphyrins is a decisive factor to achieve high light-harvesting efficiency. In solution phase, however, regular control is rather difficult because of the predominantly strong ³³ stacking force among the porphyrin rings, which in most cases governs the resultant aggregation mode. It thus occurred to us that the crystal phase is a potential alternative to realize a variety of new porphyrin aggregation modes. The first idea was to separate the distance among porphyrin rings through formation of inclusion complexes. In this study, we have succeeded in isolating each porphyrin in the single crystal utilizing hostguest complex formation with methylated ¢-cyclodextrin (¢-CD) (Figure 1). Over a long period, hostguest complexes of CDs have been studied extensively. 49 In particular, the interaction between porphyrin and ¢-CD is interesting from the viewpoint of a biomimetic model for hemoproteins. It has been proposed that porphyrins form bicapped hostguest complexes with ¢-CDs in solution.10,11 However, their complex structures have been discussed only on the basis of the spectral properties and theoretical calculations. It is really surprising that so far nobody analyzes the single-crystal complex structures, although the complexation modes have frequently been discussed in the references. 1016 Here, we report the first example of the crystal structure of porphyrin bicapped with ¢-CDs.2,3,6-Trimethyl-¢-cyclodextrin (TM¢CD) was selected to isolate a single crystal from aqueous solution, because TM¢CD has higher inclusion ability for meso-aryl groups of tetraarylporphyrins (K µ 10 6 M
¹1) than other ¢-CD derivatives. 1216 As for a guest porphyrin, we selected 5,10,15,20-tetrapyridin-4-ylporphyrin (TPyP), because the water solubility of this compound can be adjusted by solution pH and the compound disperses well in acidic aqueous solution. Basically, there is scarce interaction between meso-tetrapyridiniumporphyrin and the ¢-CD c...