Visible-Light-Driven Halogen Bond Donor Based Molecular Switches: From Reversible Unwinding to Handedness Inversion in Self-Organized Soft Helical Superstructures

Visible-light-driven molecular switches endowing reversible modulation of the functionalities of self-organized soft materials are currently highly sought after for fundamental scientific studies and technological applications. Reported herein are the design and synthesis of two novel halogen bond donor based chiral molecular switches that exhibit reversible photoisomerization upon exposure to visible light of different wavelengths. These chiral molecular switches induce photoresponsive helical superstructures, that is, cholesteric liquid crystals, when doped into the commercially available room-temperature achiral liquid crystal host 5CB, which also acts as a halogen-bond acceptor. The induced helical superstructure containing the molecular switch with terminal iodo atoms exhibits visible-light-driven reversible unwinding, that is, a cholesteric–nematic phase transition. Interestingly, the molecular switch with terminal bromo atoms confers reversible handedness inversion to the helical superstructure upon irradiation with visible light of different wavelengths. This visible-light-driven, reversible handedness inversion, enabled by a halogen bond donor molecular switch, is unprecedented.     

Microporosity of a Guanidinium Organodisulfonate Hydrogen-Bonded Framework

Guanidinium organosulfonates (GSs) are a large and well-explored archetypal family of hydrogen-bonded organic host frameworks that have, over the past 25 years, been regarded as nonporous. Reported here is the only example to date of a conventionally microporous GS host phase, namely guanidinium 1,4-benzenedisulfonate ( p -G₂BDS ). p -G₂BDS is obtained from its acetone solvate, AcMe@ G₂BDS , by single-crystal-to-single-crystal (SC-SC) desolvation, and exhibits a Type I low-temperature/pressure N₂ sorption isotherm (SA_BET=408.7(2) m² g⁻¹, 77 K). SC-SC sorption of N₂, CO₂, Xe, and AcMe by p -G₂BDS is explored under various conditions and X-ray diffraction provides a measurement of the high-pressure, room temperature Xe and CO₂ sorption isotherms. Though p -G₂BDS is formally metastable relative to the “collapsed”, nonporous polymorph, np -G₂BDS , a sample of p -G₂BDS survived for almost two decades under ambient conditions. np -G₂BDS reverts to zCO₂@ p -G₂BDS or yXe@ p -G₂BDS (y,z=variable) when pressure of CO₂ or Xe, respectively, is applied.     

DNA‐Nanotechnologie

For the past two decades the extraordinary molecular recognition properties of DNA molecules have been used for the creation of artificial molecular structures. Following the initial production of simple molecular objects and lattices, with the recent invention of the DNA origami technique the complexity of these structures has considerably increased. Now the construction of almost arbitrary molecular nanostructures from DNA in two and even three dimensions is feasible – and first concrete applications in biomedicine and nanotechnology are in reach. In addition to static molecular structures, also dynamical systems such as molecular machines, molecular motors, and molecular computers can be realized. The combination of these functions within integrated systems currently leads to the development of first molecular “robots” and assembly lines for nanotechnology.