Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Simple molecules self-assemble into the links of a nanoscale chain

Non-covalent interactions can assemble molecules into complex architectures, but with limited control of the resulting topology. A method for assembling nanoscale chains shows how specific architectures can be targeted.
  1. Guillaume De Bo

    1. Guillaume De Bo is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Complex molecular architectures are usually constructed by connecting a variety of building blocks together in a stepwise manner. But sometimes, complex structures emerge from the self-assembly of a single constituent. Writing in Nature, Datta et al.1 show how polycatenanes — chains made of interlocked nanometre-scale rings — can be formed by the remarkable self-assembly of a simple molecular building block.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 583, 361-362 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02007-y

References

  1. Datta, S. et al. Nature 583, 400–405 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Bruns, C. J. & Stoddart, J. F. in The Nature of the Mechanical Bond: From Molecules to Machines Ch. 1, 1–54 (Wiley, 2016).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Peplow, M. Nature 525, 18–21 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Wu, Q. et al. Science 358, 1434–1439 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Vantomme, G. & Meijer, E. W. Science 363, 1396–1397 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. De Greef, T. F. A. & Meijer, E. W. Nature 453, 171–173 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Yagai, S., Kitamoto, Y., Datta, S. & Adhikari, B. Acc. Chem. Res. 52, 1325–1335 (2019).

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links