Self-assembled organic materials

Fujima, T., Frusawa, H., Minamikawa, H., Ito, K. and Shimizu, T. (2006) Elastic precursor of the transformation from glycolipid nanotube to vesicle, Journal of Physics Condensed Matter, 18, 3089—3096. Kameta, N., Minamikawa, H., Masuda, M., Mizuno, G. and Shimizu, T. (2008) Controllable biomolecule release from self-assembled organic nanotubes with asymmetric surfaces pH and temperature dependence. Soft Matter, 4 (8), 1681-1688. Weiss R.G. and Terech P. (eds.) (2006) Molecular Gels Materials with Self-Assembled Fibrillar Networks, Springer, Dordrecht. 

In addition to mesostructured metal oxide molecular sieves prepared through supramolecular assembly pathways, clays, carbon molecular sieves, porous polymers, sol-gel and imprinted materials, as well as self-assembled organic and other zeolite-like materials, have captured the attention of materials researchers around the globe. Clays, zeolites and sol-gel materials are still very popular because of their extensive and expanding applications in catalysis and separation science. Novel carbons and polymers of ordered porous structures have been synthesized. There are almost unlimited opportunities in the synthesis of new organic materials of desired structural and surface properties via self-assembly or imprinting procedures. 

Although much of the interest in biological nanostructures has focused on relatively complex functionality, cells and organisms themselves can be considered as a collection of self-assembled materials lipid bilayers, the extracellular matrix, tendon and connective tissue, skin, spider silk, cotton fiber, wood, and bone are all self-assembled biological materials, with an internal structure hierarchically ordered from the molecular to the macroscopic scale. 

Mauritz, K.A. Mountz, D.A. Reuschle, D.A. Blackwell, R.I. Self-assembled organic/inorganic hybrids as membrane materials. Electrochim. Acta 2004, 50, 565 (and references therein). 

TM-AFM is a powerful tool to observe surface topography of soft materials such as self-assembled organic molecules, polymers, or biomolecules because these materials require the minimization of force interaction between the AFM tip and... 

Kato T. Hydrogen-bonded liquid crystals molecular self-assembly for dynamically functional materials. In Fuiita M, editor. Molecular self-assembly organic versus inorganic approaches. Berlin Heidelberg Springer 2000. p. 95-146. 

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are molecular layers tliat fonn spontaneously upon adsorjDtion by immersing a substrate into a dilute solution of tire surface-active material in an organic solvent [115]. This is probably tire most comprehensive definition and includes compounds tliat adsorb spontaneously but are neither specifically bonded to tire substrate nor have intennolecular interactions which force tire molecules to organize tliemselves in tire sense tliat a defined orientation is adopted. Some polymers, for example, belong to tliis class. They might be attached to tire substrate via weak van der Waals interactions only. 

---