Metal-driven Self-Assembly: the Case of Redox-Active Discrete Architectures
Résumé
The metal-driven self-assembly strategy is well-established for the construction of discrete architectures featuring a cavity. The resulting molecular rings and cages are potentially useful as hosts for complementary guests. The recent years have seen a growing interest for introduction of given functionalities, including redox properties which, among other, allow modulating the ionic charge of the cavity. Depending on which subunit is electroactive, various situations can be encountered, with a global redox activity which is ligand- or/and metal-centered and which involves -or not- electronic interactions between the constituting units. In this feature article, we propose to survey those different situations by exploring some recent examples of the growing family of redox-active self-assembled rings and cages.