Supramolecular chemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The structure of water in the first layer on surfaces is essential to our understanding of various phenomena, such as surface wettability and heterogeneous catalysis. Here, the authors use atomic force microscopy with a CO-functionalized tip to image water defects on copper surface at atomic resolution.

    • Akitoshi Shiotari
    •  & Yoshiaki Sugimoto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Self-assembly is a strategy for making metal-organic materials but controlling the interior of metal-organic crystals remains challenging. Here, the authors report a sequential self-assembly process for synthesizing various interior morphologies of metal-organic crystal demonstrating evolution of form.

    • Jiyoung Lee
    • , Ja Hun Kwak
    •  & Wonyoung Choe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has been proposed that stacking antiaromatic molecules can build three-dimensional aromaticity, but this claim has lacked experimental validation. Here the authors report that π–π stacked antiaromatic porphyrins display significantly reduced antiaromaticity in solid state and in solution.

    • Ryo Nozawa
    • , Hiroko Tanaka
    •  & Hiroshi Shinokubo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The application of nanofibres formed from monomers of bacterial type IV pili in vitrohas proven to be complex. Here, the authors have overcome this limitation by using a reductionist approach to design a self-assembling pilin-based 20-mer peptide capable of forming a supramolecular beta sheet.

    • Tom Guterman
    • , Micha Kornreich
    •  & Ehud Gazit

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photocatalytic water splitting is a promising route to hydrogen generation from renewable solar power. Here, the authors report a hydrogen-evolving photochemical molecular device based on a self-assembled coordination cage, which simultaneously incorporates multiple photosensitizing and catalytic metal centres.

    • Sha Chen
    • , Kang Li
    •  & Cheng-Yong Su

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crystalline phase transition can be used to detect changes in the solid state properties of materials. Here, the authors describe the mechanical response of a crystal composed of ferrocene-containing rotaxane to laser irradiation.

    • Kai-Jen Chen
    • , Ya-Ching Tsai
    •  & Masaki Horie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exciton coupling between organic dyes is important for opto-electronic and photovoltaic devices and it is well-known that strong coupling occurs between equal chromophores. Here, Würthner and others show quadruple dye stacks that have strong exciton coupling between different chromophores within a heteroaggregate.

    • David Bialas
    • , André Zitzler-Kunkel
    •  & Frank Würthner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial light-harvesting systems cannot self-assemble into photon-capturing structures that can reversibly switch into an inactive state. Here, the authors describe a simple and robust dipeptide construct which self-assembles to fibrils, platelets or nanospheres with varying optical properties.

    • Georgios Charalambidis
    • , Evangelos Georgilis
    •  & Teodor Silviu Balaban

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymersomes are used in many applications, ranging from drug delivery to microfluidics, but controlling their shape is difficult. Here, Christianen and co-workers have precisely controlled polymersome shape via an out-of-equilibrium process and fully understood the mechanism of this procedure.

    • R. S. M. Rikken
    • , H. Engelkamp
    •  & P. C. M. Christianen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protein subunits on the capsids of icosahedral viruses can form patterns with rotational symmetry, which are difficult to recreate in the laboratory. Here the authors report a strategy to construct 3D chiral polyhedra with rotational faces from 2D chiral truxene-based units through dynamic covalent chemistry.

    • Xinchang Wang
    • , Yu Wang
    •  & Xiaoyu Cao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Determining results of asymmetric reactions can take long periods of time and consume large amounts of organic solvents during work-up and analysis. Here, the authors report a bifunctional organic probe that can bind to chiral hydroxyacids, and provide yield, enantiomeric excess and absolute configuration even with crude mixtures.

    • Keith W. Bentley
    • , Daysi Proano
    •  & Christian Wolf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anisotropic nanoparticles made from block copolymers are important building blocks for synthetic hierarchical materials. Here, the authors report a reversible coordination-driven self-assembly strategy for the preparation of micron-scale fibres and macroscopic films based on monodisperse cylindrical micelles.

    • David J. Lunn
    • , Oliver E. C. Gould
    •  & Ian Manners

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rotaxanes are interlocked molecules that can undergo sliding and rotational movements and can be used in artificial molecular machines and motors. Here, Simmel and co-workers show a rigid rotaxane structures consisting of DNA origami subunits that can slide over several hundreds of nanometres.

    • Jonathan List
    • , Elisabeth Falgenhauer
    •  & Friedrich C. Simmel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Peptide and oligonucleotide systems are known to self-assemble both in nature and artificial systems. Here, the authors combine both forms of self-assembly through the synthesis of peptideoligonucleotide conjugates and show formation of a three-helix structure that dimerises at higher concentrations.

    • Chenguang Lou
    • , Manuel C. Martos-Maldonado
    •  & Knud J. Jensen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Up conversion is an Anti-Stokes luminescent process by which photons of low energy are piled up to generate light at a higher energy. Here, the authors report a supramolecular assembly of fluoride-bridged erbium complexes which exhibit this behaviour in D2O solution at room temperature.

    • Aline Nonat
    • , Chi Fai Chan
    •  & Loïc J. Charbonnière

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Self-assembly enables complex structures to be fabricated from a few relatively simple components, but requires a detailed understanding of how the constituents may interact. Here, the authors report the rational assembly and crystallographic characterization of a fullerene-protein superstructure.

    • Kook-Han Kim
    • , Dong-Kyun Ko
    •  & Gevorg Grigoryan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Similarly to halogen bonding, the heavier chalcogens are capable of forming supramolecular links with electron rich sites. Here, the authors show that these forces can allow the formation of well-defined cyclic structures that are stable in solution and are capable of forming host-guest complexes.

    • Peter C. Ho
    • , Patrick Szydlowski
    •  & Ignacio Vargas-Baca

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the structure and transformation of colloidal matter requires probing configurations from monomers to extended assemblies. Here, the authors use liquid-cell electron microscopy to elucidate the nucleation and growth properties of linear chains of branched nanocrystals in solution.

    • Eli Sutter
    • , Peter Sutter
    •  & Liberato Manna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Paramagnetic heterometallic rings have long been considered as possible qubits within a quantum information processing system. Here, the authors employ supramolecular chemistry to fabricate multiple rings around multi-armed threads, as an important step towards generating useful qubit arrays.

    • Antonio Fernandez
    • , Jesus Ferrando-Soria
    •  & Richard E.P. Winpenny

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The occlusion of biomacromolecules can endow biominerals with enhanced mechanical properties. Here, the authors usein situatomic force microscopy and micromechanical simulations to trace micelle incorporation in calcite to shed light on the mechanism of occlusion and cavity formation.

    • Kang Rae Cho
    • , Yi-Yeoun Kim
    •  & James J. De Yoreo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Activated atmospheric dioxygen is potentially an environmentally friendly oxidant. Here, the authors incorporate a flavin mononucleotide into a water soluble polymer, demonstrating single electron reduction of a metalloporphyrin centre, and subsequent activation of dioxygen for the oxidation of organic substrates.

    • Yoann Roux
    • , Rémy Ricoux
    •  & Jean-Pierre Mahy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Natural and synthetic systems have fundamentally different approaches to signal generation. Here, the authors report a strategy that enables transient signal generation in a self-assembled system and show that it can be used to mimic several key features of natural signalling pathways.

    • Cristian Pezzato
    •  & Leonard J. Prins

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of supramolecular chemistry and dynamic covalent crosslinking are ideal ways to generate soft materials with desirable mechanical behaviours. Here, the authors report on practical and computational methods used to elucidate the structural properties of PEG-hemiaminal organogel networks.

    • Courtney H. Fox
    • , Gijs M. ter Hurrne
    •  & Jeannette M. García

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanically locked molecules provide interesting topological structures and can present challenging synthetic targets. Here the authors report the synthesis of mechanically self-locked molecules, including chiral endo-spirobicyclics containing multiply interlocked rings within a single molecule.

    • Sheng-Hua Li
    • , Heng-Yi Zhang
    •  & Yu Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cryptands and related molecules are macrocyclic polyethers capable of strongly binding cations. Here, the authors use orthoester exchange for the dynamic one-pot synthesis of crypates, which can bind cations and, given their constitutionally dynamic nature, can also be decomposed to release their guest.

    • René-Chris Brachvogel
    • , Frank Hampel
    •  & Max von Delius

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solid-state fluorescent materials show promise for potential applications in security and anti-counterfeiting technologies. Here, the authors report a heterorotaxane which has found application in security inks with highly tunable solid-state fluorescence through supramolecular encapsulation.

    • Xisen Hou
    • , Chenfeng Ke
    •  & J. Fraser Stoddart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The physical properties of gel materials makes them attractive options in various applications, but supramolecular gels typically lack mechanical strength. Here, the authors present a calix[4]arene-based supramoleculer gel tuned to possess high tensile strength.

    • Ji Ha Lee
    • , Jaehyeon Park
    •  & Jong Hwa Jung

  • Article |

    Certain chiral macroions have previously been shown to self-assemble into spherical structures. Here, the authors observe self-sorting of racemic macroions into enantiomeric ‘blackberry’-shaped structures, and furthermore show that the addition of chiral co-anions allows the formation of a single enantiomer.

    • Panchao Yin
    • , Zhi-Ming Zhang
    •  & Tianbo Liu

  • Article |

    Self-assembly is an attractive route to the formation of functional materials. Here the authors report a droplet-based microfluidic method to assemble supramolecular polymer capsules composed of two different layered shells, capable of orthogonal storage of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic guests.

    • Yu Zheng
    • , Ziyi Yu
    •  & Oren A. Scherman

  • Article |

    Mixtures of various size fullerenes are available as a component of fullerene soot, but isolating pure fullerenes is a challenging task. Here, the authors use a porphyrin-based supramolecular cage that encapsulates fullerenes with high selectivity and releases C60by a simple washing technique.

    • Cristina García-Simón
    • , Marc Garcia-Borràs
    •  & Xavi Ribas

  • Article |

    The limit external quantum efficiency of organic LEDs based on isotropically oriented iridium complexes is believed to be around 30%. But Kim et al. show that the emission from these complexes is in fact anisotropic, enabling them to increase the external quantum efficiency of these devices to 36%.

    • Kwon-Hyeon Kim
    • , Sunghun Lee
    •  & Jang-Joo Kim

  • Article |

    Metal-organic frameworks are well studied for mass transfer applications, although rates of mass transfer for similar systems are shown to vary widely, attributed to surface barriers. Here, the authors quantitatively study this phenomenon and demonstrate that surface barriers are not intrinsic to the materials.

    • Lars Heinke
    • , Zhigang Gu
    •  & Christof Wöll

  • Article |

    Cryptophanes are common host molecules, capable of binding neutral guests strongly. Here the authors show that, contrary to popular belief, solvents commonly used for these studies can be enclosed by the host and hence affect the calculated binding constants.

    • Gebhard Haberhauer
    • , Sascha Woitschetzki
    •  & Heinz Bandmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Supramolecular self-assembly is a fundamentally important process in fields ranging from structural biology to materials chemistry. Here, the authors report the supramolecular assembly of complex nanostructures from simple nucleosides, and probe the formation process using various in situtechniques.

    • Hang Zhao
    • , Xiurong Guo
    •  & Qianming Chen

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