Metal-driven self-assembly: the case of redox-active discrete architectures

The metal-driven self-assembly strategy is well-established for the construction of discrete architectures featuring a cavity. The resulting molecular rings and cages are potentially useful as hosts for complementary guests. Recent years have seen growing interest in the introduction of given functionalities, including redox properties which, among others, allow modulating the ionic charge of the cavity. Depending on which subunit is electroactive, various situations can be encountered, with a global redox activity which is ligand- and/or metal-centered and which involves or not electronic interactions between the constituting units. In this feature article, we propose to survey those different situations by exploring some recent examples of the growing family of redox-active self-assembled rings and cages.