An exciting research challenge in supramolecular chemistry is to design, synthesize, and characterize nano-sized architectures with applications in biology, chemistry, and materials science.1 Predicting and designing non-covalently bound supramolecular complexes and assemblies is difficult because of the weakness of the interactions involved, thus the resulting superstructure is often a compromise between the geometrical constraints of the building blocks and the competing weak intermolecular interactions2.

Our research interest has been focused on the studies of weak non-covalent intermolecular, viz. supramolecular interactions as the driving force in self-assembly and molecular recognition, especially in the solid-state by single crystal X-ray diffraction, and more recently solid-state NMR, in solution by 1H and 1H-15N HMBC NMR, and in gas phase with ion-mobility mass spectrometry.  The lecture will highlight some of our recent studies on halogen-bonded systems3, anion•••p interactions4 and metal ion coordination5 in molecular self-assembly and molecular recognition in various systems such as rotaxanes, M4L6 tetrahedra, M8L6 cube, spheres, knots, etc.