Template-Induced Screw Motions within an Aromatic Amide Foidamer Double Helix

摘要

Important steps have been made to control motion at the molecular scale in synthetic systems. Examples of elementary molecular motions such as rotations and translations have been reported, as well as combined motions such as coupled rotations, coupled translations, and springlike extensions. In addition, the direction of molecular movements can sometimes be controlled in translations (shuttling) and in rotations. Herein, we focus on a less-investigated motion, the screw motion, which consists of the linear combination of a rotation and a translation. We found that the sliding of two molecular tapes along one another within a double-helical duplex can be controlled by rodlike guests, so that the length of the duplex matches with the length of the guest (Figure 1a).