Nanoscale Molecular Tweezers
The featured molecules for this month
are drawn from the “Research
Advances” column by Angela G. King, and represent some of
the structures from the research on molecular tweezers (published
in J.
Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 126, 8124). The
structures below are based on the figure on page 1690 showing
two types of receptors that switch between U and W shapes
upon coordination of soft metal cations, acting in the manner
of mechanical tweezers.
When viewing these molecules in Chime you must render in ball and stick or
space filling modes in order to see the incorporated metal ions. In several
cases the torsion angles connecting the anthracene substituents to the rest
of the molecule are not well defined and have been drawn as either coplanar
or orthogonal to the central ring system. At a moderate level of theory, the
torsion angle in those instances where it has been set to 90° displays
a broad minimum ranging for 50–130°.
In addition to the static image, two fully manipulable versions (Jmol, MDLChime) of these molecules appear below. (The Jmol versions may take a few extra seconds to load, based on the speed of your Internet connection.)
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