Conformational Flexibility of a Rotaxane Thread Probed by Electronic Spectroscopy in Helium Nanodroplets

摘要

Mechanically interlocked architectures such as rotaxanes are multicomponent assemblies that hold great promise for a molecular, bottom-up approach toward nanotechnological applications.Conformational dynamics are at the very heart of the interesting properties of these molecular-level machines. Yet questions such as how to characterize the large degree of conformational heterogeneity intrinsically present in these systems and how this heterogeneity influences their properties, as well as questions on how intercomponent interactions affect the conformational flexibility of each of the components have so far not been systematically addressed.