Thread Content
Tianjin University develops supramolecular Archimedean polyhedra to open up new pathways for the chiral assembly of optoelectronic small molecules. On January 9, recent research achievements by Professors Hu Wenping, Wang Yu, and Wu Huang from the School of Science at Tianjin University, together with Nobel laureate Professor James Fraser Stoddart, in the development of chiral Archimedean polyhedra with optoelectronic functions were published in the renowned international academic journal Nature. Over 2,000 years ago, the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes proposed 13 Archimedean solids. These polyhedra are obtained by operations such as bisecting, truncating, and twisting regular polyhedra, and are known for their complex structure. Among these 13 polyhedra, the twisted cube is one of the two Archimedean polyhedra with topological chirality, and achieving its stereospecific construction has always been a goal pursued by chemists and materials scientists. In this latest research achievement, the research team collaborated to develop a new approach for the chiral assembly of optoelectronic small molecules, thereby constructing supramolecular twisted cubes. The supramolecular twisted cube designed and synthesized by the research team consists of 24 vertices, 60 edges, and 38 faces, including 6 squares, 8 equilateral triangles, and 24 irregular triangles. This study achieved the selective construction of left-handed twisted cubes and right-handed twisted cubes. Due to its unique porous structure, this twisted cube is capable of holding multiple different organic guest molecules simultaneously, and it can selectively accommodate various guest molecules in both the internal cavities and external \"pockets\" of the cube. Furthermore, this twisted cube exhibits excellent optoelectronic properties; it can undergo reversible color changes under light exposure, and its elasticity and hardness can also be adjusted using light, thereby laying the foundation for the development of advanced optoelectronic functional materials with tunable mechanical properties. Archimedean polyhedra have long attracted the attention of chemists and materials scientists, as such fundamental research can have a profound impact on fields such as new materials, biomedicine, and chemical engineering; for example, many spherical viral capsids and ferritin exhibit topological structures similar to those of Archimedean polyhedra. The design and synthesis of supramolecular twisted cubes can provide an important approach to understanding the formation and functional performance of spherical biological macromolecules in biological systems.