Supramolecular structure and dynamics

Abstract

Highlighting this issue of PNAS is a special feature comprised of two Perspectives and four research articles dealing with aspects of supramolecular chemistry and dynamics. The term “supramolecular” invokes a chemistry beyond the molecule. Although the term supramolecular assembly or supermolecule is now widely used in the chemical, biological, and materials literature, a precise definition is difficult to pin down. One way to obtain some insight to the term is to define a molecule as an assembly of atoms that is held together by relatively strong intramolecular bonds, and to define a supermolecule as an assembly of molecules that is held together by relatively weak intramolecular bonds. This definition of supramolecular chemistry implies that the successful ideas of structure that have been so successful in describing molecules will also be successful in describing supermolecules. With this analogy in mind, in the same way that atoms are telescoped to a mathematical point to describe molecular structure, molecules are telescoped to points in supramolecular structures. We now can understand the properties of supermolecules that …