Inspired by natural biomolecular machines, synthetic molecular-level machines have been proven to perform well-defined mechanical tasks and measurable work. To mimic the function of channel proteins, we herein report the development of a synthetic molecular shuttle, [2]­rotaxane 3, as a unimolecular vehicle that can be inserted into lipid bilayers to perform passive ion transport through its stochastic shuttling motion. The [2]­rotaxane molecular shuttle is composed of an amphiphilic molecular thread with three binding stations, which is interlocked in a macrocycle wheel component that tethers a K+ carrier. The structural characteristics enable the rotaxane to transport ions across the lipid bilayers, similar to a cable car, transporting K+ with an EC50 value of 1.0 μM (3.0 mol % relative to lipid). We expect that this simple molecular machine will provide new opportunities for developing more effective and selective ion transporters.

Regulating the fluorescent properties of organic small molecules in a controlled and dynamic manner has been a fundamental research goal. Although several strategies have been exploited, realizing multi-color molecular emission from a single fluorophore remains challenging. Herein, we demonstrate an emissive system by combining pyrene fluorophore and acylhydrazone units, which can generate multi-color switchable fluorescent emissions at different assembled states. Two kinds of supramolecular tools, amphiphilic self-assembly and γ-cyclodextrin mediated host-guest recognition, are used to manipulate the intermolecular aromatic stacking distances, resulting in the tunable fluorescent emission ranging from blue to yellow, including a pure white-light emission. Moreover, an external chemical signal, amylase, is introduced to control the assembly states of the system on a time scale, generating a distinct dynamic emission system. The dynamic properties of this multi-color fluorescent system can be also enabled in a hydrogel network, exhibiting a promising potential for intelligent fluorescent materials.

An artificial molecular actuator was designed and constructed for the reversible manipulation of nanoparticle dimers. This nanosized linear actuator can undertake contraction/extension between the attached nanoparticle dimers, thus actuating the gap distance in a controlled and reversible manner. A platform based on darkfield microscopy has been also constructed for the real-time detection and optical signal output at a single-particle level. This strategy is promising for the potential application of artificial molecular machines in single-molecule devices.

Photomechanical molecular crystals are promising candidates for photoactuators and can potentially be implemented as smart materials in various fields. Here, we synthesized a new molecular crystal, (E)-3-(naphthalen-1yl)acrylaldehyde malononitrile ((E)-NAAM), that can undergo a solid-state [2 + 2] photocycloaddition reaction under visible light (≥400 nm) illumination. (E)-NAAM microcrystals containing symmetric twinned sealed cavities were prepared using a surfactant-mediated crystal seeded growth method. When exposed to light, the hollow microcrystals exhibited robust photomechanical motions, including bending and dramatic directional expansion of up to 43.1% elongation of the original crystal length before fragmentation due to the photosalient effect. The sealed cavities inside the microcrystals could store different aqueous dye solutions for approximately one month and release the solutions instantly upon light irradiation. A unique slow−fast−slow crystal elongation kinematic process was observed, suggesting significant molecular rearrangements during the illumination period, leading to an average anisotropic crystal elongation of 37.0% (±3.8%). The significant molecular structure and geometry changes accompanying the photocycloaddition reaction, which propels photochemistry to nearly 100% completion, also facilitate photomechanical crystal expansion. Our results provide a possible way to rationally design molecular structures and engineer crystal morphologies to promote more interesting photomechanical behaviors.

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A partial interference cancellation (PIC) group decoding based space-time block code (STBC) design criterion was recently proposed by Guo and Xia, where the decoding complexity and the code rate trade-off is dealt when the full diversity is achieved. In this paper, two designs of STBC are proposed for any number of transmit antennas that can obtain full diversity when a PIC group decoding (with a particular grouping scheme) is applied at receiver. With the PIC group decoding and an appropriate grouping scheme for the decoding, the proposed STBC are shown to obtain the same diversity gain as the ML decoding, but have a low decoding complexity. The first proposed STBC is designed with multiple diagonal layers and it can obtain the full diversity for two-layer design with the PIC group decoding and the rate is up to 2 symbols per channel use. But with PIC-SIC group decoding, the first proposed STBC can obtain full diversity for any number of layers and the rate can be full. The second proposed STBC can obtain full diversity and a rate up to 9/4 with the PIC group decoding. Some code design examples are given and simulation results show that the newly proposed STBC can well address the rate-performance-complexity tradeoff of the MIMO systems. Index TermsW. Zhang is with

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