Marco Cecchini: "Molecular Self-assembly: From Empirism to Determinism"
Wann |
02.02.2012 von 13:15 bis 14:00 |
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Wo | FRIAS Lecture Hall, Albertstr. 19, 79104 Freiburg |
Name | Francesco Rao |
Kontakttelefon | +49 761 203 97418 |
Teilnehmer |
Open to University employees |
Termin übernehmen |
vCal iCal |
Marco Cecchini
Laboratoire d'Ingénierie des Fonctions Moléculaires ISIS, Strasbourg, France
Molecular Self-assembly: From Empirism to Determinism
Molecular self-assembly is one of the most important concepts of the 21st century. Strikingly, despite the rational design of molecules for pharmaceutical applications is well established, only few are the attempts to formally refine predictions of self-assembly in material science. Here we use atomistic molecular dynamics to simulate the recognition of complementary hydrogen-bonding modules that form 2D supramolecular networks at surfaces. We describe the transition path from the melt to the crystalline hexagonal phase and show that self-assembly proceeds through a series of intermediate states featuring a plethora of polygonal types. Finally, we design a novel bicomponent system possessing kinetically improved self-healing ability in silico, thus demonstrating that a priori engineering of 2D self-assembly is possible. Within the common framework of partition functions, we endeavor to correlate state-of-the art chemical design, programming and/or engineering of reversible self-assembly events in a step towards quantitative predictions and ab initio molecular design.