Research Projects

The metal driven self-assembly is an elegant method to design and construct multi-component supramolecular architectures by mixing predesigned building blocks that are simple and small in suitable conditions. In contrast to the known coordination cages of various metal ions crafted with single cavity, we have recently introduced a palladium(II) based conjoined cages with two, three and four numbers of 3-D cavities. Thus, we opened a new avenue and disclosed the trick for crafting multi-compartmental cages. Now we are interested in the preparation of a variety of homoleptic and heteroleptic coordination cages possessing high symmetry and low symmetry in their structure as originated from the symmetry present in the designer ligands. This will allow studying cooperative effect of the cavities in their recognition properties. Synthesis of photo-switchable self-assembled coordination cages and the study of interaction of light on their structural diversity and selectivity in guest binding will be explored.