Metallo-supramolecular engineering on surfaces provides a powerful strategy toward low-dimensional coordination architectures with prospects for several application fields. To date, most efforts have relied on transition metal centers, and only recently did we pioneer lanthanide-directed assembly. Coordination spheres and motifs with rare-earth elements generally display distinct properties and structural features. The size of the cations and shielding role of the 4f orbitals induces high coordination numbers, frequently entailing flexible coordination geometries. Following Pearson’s hard and soft acid–base theory, lanthanide cations are hard Lewis acids and thus feature strong affinity for nitrile, terpyridine, and carboxylate donor moieties. The prevailing oxidation state is +3, although in certain compounds stable +2 or +4 cations occur. The chemistry of rare-earth elements is currently receiving widespread attention, as they are key ingredients for established and emerging 21st century science and technology with relevance for energy conversion, sensing, catalysis, magnetism, photonics, telecommunications, superconductivity, biomedicine, and quantum engineering.

中文翻译：

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镧系元素指导的界面协调架构的组装-从复杂网络到功能纳米系统

表面上的金属超分子工程学为低维配合体系结构提供了强大的策略，并有望在多个应用领域中得到应用。迄今为止，大多数工作都依赖于过渡金属中心，直到最近我们才开创了镧系元素导向的装配技术。具有稀土元素的配位球和图案通常显示出不同的特性和结构特征。阳离子的大小和4f轨道的屏蔽作用引起高配位数，通常需要灵活的配位几何形状。遵循Pearson的硬酸和软酸碱理论，镧系元素阳离子是硬路易斯酸，因此对腈，三联吡啶和羧酸酯供体部分具有很强的亲和力。主要的氧化态为+3，尽管在某些化合物中会出现+2或+4稳定的阳离子。