Supramolecular host/guest compounds and their prospects for multifunctional materials

Cleverly designed molecular building blocks provide chemists with the tools of a powerful molecular-scale construction set. They enable them to engine er materials having a predictable order and useful solid-state properties. Hence, it is in the realm of supramolecular chemistry to follow a strategy for synthesizing materials which combine a selected set of properties, for instance from the areas of magnetism, photophysics and electronics. As a po ssible approach, host/guest solids which are based on extended anionic, hom o- and bimetallic oxalato-bridged transition-metal compounds with two- and three-dimensional connectivities are investigated In particular, we report herein in detail about their structural properties and their multifunctiona l characteristics in the area of molecular magnetism and photophysics.