For the past three decades, the coordination-driven self-assembly of three-dimensional structures has undergone rapid progress; however, parallel efforts to create large discrete two-dimensional architectures-as opposed to polymers-have met with limited success. The synthesis of metallo-supramolecular systems with well-defined shapes and sizes in the range of 10-100 nm remains challenging. Here we report the construction of a series of giant supramolecular hexagonal grids, with diameters on the order of 20 nm and molecular weights greater than 65 kDa, through a combination of intra- and intermolecular metal-mediated self-assembly steps. The hexagonal intermediates and the resulting self-assembled grid architectures were imaged at submolecular resolution by scanning tunnelling microscopy. Characterization (including by scanning tunnelling spectroscopy) enabled the unambiguous atomic-scale determination of fourteen hexagonal grid isomers.

中文翻译：

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20 纳米宽的超分子六边形网格的分子内和分子间自组装。

在过去的 30 年中，三维结构的协调驱动自组装取得了快速进展；然而，与聚合物相反，创建大型离散二维架构的并行努力取得了有限的成功。具有明确定义的形状和尺寸在 10-100 nm 范围内的金属超分子系统的合成仍然具有挑战性。在这里，我们报告了通过分子内和分子间金属介导的自组装步骤的组合，构建了一系列直径为 20 nm 且分子量大于 65 kDa 的巨型超分子六边形网格。六边形中间体和由此产生的自组装网格结构通过扫描隧道显微镜以亚分子分辨率成像。