Light-responsive anion binding: controlling complexation, communication, and motion

Abstract

During the past decades, the development of artificial anion receptors has gathered major interest. However, although a plethora of photoswitchable anion receptors has been developed to date and on-demand uptake and release of anions from solution has been reported, the application of such receptors to regulate more complex multicomponent systems is underexplored. In this thesis, several new types of photoswitchable stiff-stilbene-based (mechanically interlocked) anion receptors have been developed, and they have been used to control multicomponent processes in complex systems, including supramolecular polymerization, molecular communication and unidirectional pumping.