Tris(4-iodophenyl)amine (cas# 4181-20-8) is a useful building block mostly used in the preparation of nanostructures and nanoparticles, such as in the preparation of macrocycle-in-a-macrocycle superstructure with all-gauche conformation by reversible radical association, or in the preparation of supramolecular nanocages on terpyridine building blocks.