The quest for technologically useful materials with nanometer-sized features increasingly relies on synthetic innovations to assemble complex supramolecules. The difficulty in creating intricate structures from smaller molecular building blocks is organizing the pieces in specific pre-designed ways. The difficulty increases with
The quest for technologically useful materials with nanometer-sized features increasingly relies on synthetic innovations to assemble complex supramolecules. The difficulty in creating intricate structures from smaller molecular building blocks is organizing the pieces in specific pre-designed ways. The difficulty increases with complexity, but so do the rewards. Just as the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary elements of structure endow enzymes with enhanced functionality, so development of nanotechnology aims to harness the efficacy beyond the limits of primary covalent interactions. This area of research has recently spawned applications in catalysis, ion exchange, host-guest interactions, molecular magnets, nanoelectronics, and nanomachines.
We build supramolecules by linking inorganic units (atoms or clusters) with organic ligands. We are working to design, synthesize, and characterize coordination networks of arbitrary size, shape, and symmetry by exploiting mathematical constraints and chemical control. Besides encouraging undergraduate students to invent and execute rational synthetic schemes, this interdisciplinary 