Multi-Stimulus Triggered Programmable Transformation of Molecular Motor Based Chiral Supramolecular Polymers in Water

A notable characteristic of living organisms is their capacity to adapt to environmental changes and transform external signals into distinct responsiveness, facilitating the execution of diverse functions with motility as a key parameter. To better mimic such lifelike behavior, researchers have developed various supramolecular assembled systems with responsive behavior toward a variety of stimuli. However, exploiting motion along length scales and achieving collective control over the responsiveness to multiple stimuli in supramolecular systems is still challenging. Here we present the development of molecular motor based supramolecular polymers that are responsive toward multi-stimulus and exhibit multi-state assembly and chirality. Taking advantages of aldehyde functionalized motors, we realized photo-responsive supramolecular polymers featuring boosted photo-efficiency, near quantitative photoconversions, programmable behavior and responsiveness to multiple stimuli in a reversible manner in aqueous media. The various stimuli including light and different chemicals could act on the motor building blocks and subsequently trigger the transformation of the supramolecular polymers toward reversible polymerization, direct post-functionalization and chirality modulation. The interplay between the rotary molecular motion and the supramolecular systems assembly process, taking advantage of different external stimuli to govern the assembly state, provides a basis for multi-responsive supramolecular materials.