Mixed Crystals as Host‐Guest Systems for Probing Molecular Interactions

Abstract

AbstractA method is described for probing interactions between molecules at the surfaces of growing crystals. For this purpose, mixed crystals have been treated as unique host‐guest systems where the guest molecules are occluded into the host crystal through stereospecific interactions occurring at the different growing surfaces of the host. Owing to the process of molecular recognition at such surfaces, the adsorption and occlusion of the guest molecules takes place at specific sites, resulting in a reduction in symmetry of the mixed crystal compared to the pure host. The concept of reduction in symmetry is general, and has been instrumental for probing subtle molecular interactions at the surfaces of growing crystals, for the transformation of centrosymmetric single crystals into crystals with polar arrangement, and for “absolute” asymmetric synthesis inside centrosymmetric crystals.