Macroscopic supramolecular assembly (MSA) is a recent development in supramolecular chemistry to associate visible building blocks through non-covalent interactions in a multivalent manner. Although various substrates (e.g. hydrogels, rigid materials) have been used, a general design rule of building blocks in MSA systems and interpretation of the assembly mechanism are lacking and are required. Herein we design three model systems with varied elastic modulus and correlated the MSA probability with the elasticity. Based on the effects of substrate deformability on multivalency, we have proposed an elastic-modulus-dependent rule that building blocks below a critical modulus of 2.5 MPa can achieve MSA for the used host/guest system. Moreover, this MSA rule applies well to the design of materials for fast underwater adhesion: Soft substrates (0.5 MPa) can achieve underwater adhesion within 10 s with one order of magnitude higher strength than that of rigid substrates (2.5 MPa).

Macroscopic supramolecular assembly (MSA) represents a new advancement in supramolecular chemistry involving building blocks with sizes beyond tens of micrometers associating through noncovalent interactions. MSA is established as a unique method to fabricate supramolecularly assembled materials by shortening the length scale between bulk materials and building blocks. However, improving the precise alignment during assembly to form orderly assembled structures remains a challenge. Although the pretreatment of building blocks can ameliorate order to a certain degree, defects or mismatching still exists, which limits the practical applications of MSA. Therefore, an iterative poststrategy is proposed, where self-correction based on dynamic assembly/disassembly is applied to achieve precise, massive, and parallel assembly. The self-correction process consists of two key steps: the identification of poorly ordered structures and the selective correction of these structures. This study develops a diffusion-kinetics-dependent disassembly to well identify the poorly aligned structures and correct these structures through iterations of disassembly/reassembly in a programmed fashion. Finally, a massive and parallel assembly of 100 precise dimers over eight iteration cycles is achieved, thus providing a powerful solution to the problem of processing insensitivity to errors in self-assembly-related methods.

Four substituted 4H-benzo[1,2,4]thiadiazines 2 were prepared by condensation of the appropriate anilines and benzonitriles followed by oxidative cyclization. The preparation of three fluorinated derivatives 2b-2d proceeded smoothly, while the synthesis of 2a was problematic, presumably due to the relatively high electron density of the benzene ring. The four-ring derivatives 2c and 2d exhibited liquid crystalline properties (2c: Cr 95 SmA 158 I and 2d: Cr 142 SmA 212 I). 4H-Benzo[1,2,4]thiadiazines 2 were oxidized with AgO to generate the corresponding persistent radicals 1 (g=2.0057). The stability of the radicals followed the order 1b approximately 1d>1c>1a, and the two fluorinated radicals 1b and 1d were isolated as crude solids. The lower stability of 1c is presumably due to the presence of the reactive benzylic CH position, and 1a lacks the stabilizing effect of the three fluorine atoms. ESR spectra for 1 were simulated using DFT-derived hfcc as the starting point.

A series of hexa- and octasubstituted biphenyls containing halogen, amino, nitro, and propylthio substituents were prepared by metal-mediated convergent synthesis from halobenzene precursors. The Pd-assisted C-C coupling methods were ineffective in the formation of the Ar-Ar bond except for the synthesis of 1b. All tetra-ortho-substituted biphenyls were prepared via Ullmann coupling reactions. The halogens were introduced after formation of the biphenyl by utilizing the directing properties of the amino group(s). In the case of 3b, a polyhalogenated benzene substrate was used for biphenyl formation via Ullmann coupling.