Macro-Organic Chemistry

From the start in 1991, our research has been focused on the design, synthesis, characterization and possible applications of new functional molecular architectures. Over the years we have worked on dendrimers, semi-conducting oligomers/polymers and several supramolecular units, with chirality as a muse. In the course of time, our focus has shifted towards the synthesis and study of complex molecular systems and in 2007 our group became the founding father of the Institute of Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS) at TU/e. More recently, a renewed interest in functional supramolecular materials for electronics and biomedical engineering has underpinned the relevance of our knowledge in the design and synthesis of molecular units that self-assemble in a controlled way, producing materials ordered at the mesoscale. 

In our current research we aim at closing the gap between organic chemistry, polymer chemistry and chemical biology by applying well-controlled supramolecular chemistry protocols. Central to this is our concept of multi-step non-covalent synthesis of molecular systems, using well-defined small and large molecules. We thus synthesize and study novel artificial molecular systems where the position of all molecules in the system can be controlled with respect to time and space. To arrive at dynamic functionalties of these molecular systems, we investigate the response to external stimuli both experimentally and theoretically.