SELF-ASSEMBLING SUPERMOLECULES AND SUPRAMOLECULAR ARRAYS BASED ON METAL COORDINATION

A number of really clever approaches to self-assembling supermolecules and supramolecular arrays incorporating metal centers coordinated by organic ligands have been developed during the past two years. These n ovel procedures rely on supramolecular assistance provided by the ster eoelectronic information imprinted in the building blocks - in other w ords metal centers and ligands. This assistance guides the self-assemb ly of the building blocks into the final supramolecular product(s) in a manner reminiscent of that observed in numerous biological systems. Thus, complex and well-defined supermolecules and supramolecular array s can now be synthesized efficiently in only one step without having t o rely on tedious protection/deprotection protocols and on often low-y ielding multistep synthetic routes.