Current research
Research Interests
Our research interests include host-guest systems and self-assembly, and our expertise lies in anion binding by neutral and charged receptors, fullerene recognition and the assembly of topologically non-trivial organic structures.
Current research is focused in the design, synthesis, characterization, and study of functional molecular aggregates. We are interested in developing fundamental understanding of the effect of interlocked/entwined molecular geometries within supra-/macro- molecular materials.
Although topological chirality is one of the unique traits of mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs), it has received less attention than point chirality in other systems. In topological chirality, the chirality arises from the space relations between the MIM components. Our approach towards the design of the tools required to gather such understanding involves synthesising MIMs using lanthanide-template strategies. The use of lanthanides allows us to use their unique photophysical and magnetic properties to probe the systems under study. Lanthanide containing assemblies have great potential as molecular sensors in cellular imaging or for MRI applications. Besides, the photo-physical and magnetic properties of the Ln-assemblies are relevant for their exploitation as molecular logic gates.
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