A series of mono-and dinuclear alkynylplatinum(II) terpyridine complexes containing the hydrophilic oligo(para-phenylene ethynylene) with two 3,6,9-trioxadec-1-yloxy chains was designed and synthesized. The mononuclear alkynylplatinum(II) terpyridine complex was found to display a very strong tendency toward the formation of supramolecular structures. Interestingly, additional end-capping with another platinum(II) terpyridine moiety of various steric bulk at the terminal alkyne would lead to the formation of nanotubes or helical ribbons. These desirable nanostructures were found to be governed by the steric bulk on the platinum(II) terpyridine moieties, which modulates the directional metal−metal interactions and controls the formation of nanotubes or helical ribbons. Detailed analysis of temperature-dependent UV-visible absorption spectra of the nanostructured tubular aggregates also provided insights into the assembly mechanism and showed the role of metal−metal interactions in the cooperative supramolecular polymerization of the amphiphilic platinum(II) complexes. noncovalent interactions | platinum complex | nanoaggregates S quare-planar d 8 platinum(II) polypyridine complexes have long been known to exhibit intriguing spectroscopic and luminescence properties (1-54) as well as interesting solid-state polymorphism associated with metal−metal and π−π stacking interactions (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)25). Earlier work by our group showed the first example, to our knowledge, of an alkynylplatinum(II) terpyridine system [Pt(tpy)(C ≡ CR)] + that incorporates σ-donating and solubilizing alkynyl ligands together with the formation of Pt···Pt interactions to exhibit notable color changes and luminescence enhancements on solvent composition change (25) and polyelectrolyte addition (26). This approach has provided access to the alkynylplatinum(II) terpyridine and other related cyclometalated platinum(II) complexes, with functionalities that can self-assemble into metallogels (27-31), liquid crystals (32, 33), and other different molecular architectures, such as hairpin conformation (34), helices (35-38), nanostructures (39-45), and molecular tweezers (46, 47), as well as having a wide range of applications in molecular recognition (48-52), biomolecular labeling (48-52), and materials science (53, 54). Recently, metalcontaining amphiphiles have also emerged as a building block for supramolecular architectures (42)(43)(44)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59). Their self-assembly has always been found to yield different molecular architectures with unprecedented complexity through the multiple noncovalent interactions on the introduction of external stimuli (42)(43)(44)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59).Helical architecture is one of the most exciting self-assembled morphologies because of the uniqueness for the functional and topological properties (60-69). Helical ribbons composed of amphiphiles, such as diacetylenic lipids, glutamates, and peptidebased amphiphiles, are often precursors for the growth of tubular structures on an ...