The field of catenanes and rotaxanes has witnessed a spectacular development over the course of the past two decades. The main reason being that new template strategies have been proposed, based on the formation of noncovalent assemblies as precursors. This synthetic success has been followed by the elaboration and the study of controlled dynamic molecular systems ("molecular machines"), whose possible use in nanoscale devices, such as information storage and processing devices, has triggered much interest among various scientific communities. Based on the 21st Solvay Conference on Chemistry, which gathers the leading scientists in the field, this monograph collects not only review articles from the six topics of the conference but also comments, discussions and debates obtained during this landmark meeting: 'ˆ— Noncovalent Assemblies: Design and Synthesis 'ˆ— Template Synthesis of Catenanes and Rotaxanes 'ˆ— Molecular Machines Based on Catenanes and Rotaxanes 'ˆ— Molecular Machines Based on Non-Interlocking Molecules 'ˆ— Towards Molecular Logics and Artificial Photosynthesis 'ˆ— From Single Molecules to Practical Devices With the authors' personal views on the future of their own research areas, this makes for novel reading for organic, inorganic and polymer chemists, as well as for materials scientists.
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