Organic Host-guest Complexes for Functionalization of Nanostructured Surfaces

Over the past decade, host-guest complexes have become increasingly targeted as new tools to bind organic molecules onto the surfaces of nanostructured materials. The chemical bond between organic molecules and nanostructures has evolved in recent years, from a covalent bond through simple anchor groups, to binding through highly tunable linker-anchor units, to binding through interfacial host-guest chemistry. This review provides an overview of host-guest systems prepared from molecular hosts as cyclodextrins, cucurbiturils, calixarenes, carcerands, cavitands, and their applications in nanoscience. The binding onto quantum dots, metal nanoparticles, inorganic metal oxides, magnetic nanoparticles and carbon-based nanostructured materials and the application of the resulting heterosupramolecular structures are discussed with a focus on the most recent developments. Overall, this review illustrates how supramolecular chemistry and host-guest chemistry can be employed to anchor photo-and redox-active organic molecules to nanostructures producing sophisticated materials or functional devices oriented that can be employed in fundamental research as well as in a variety of technologically relevant applications.