ABSTRACT
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 II. Supramolecular Low-Molecular Weight Complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
A. Liquid-Crystalline Complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 B. Nonliquid-Crystalline Complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
III. Supramolecular Side-Chain Polymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 A. Liquid-Crystalline Polymeric Complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 B. Nonliquid-Crystalline Polymeric Complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
IV. Functionalization of Complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 V. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
I. INTRODUCTION
The concept of supramolecular chemistry and self-assembly has become one of the central topics in current chemistry [1-7]. A wide variety of supramolecular systems composed of multicomponents have been prepared in crystalline, liquid-crystalline, and solution states. The introduction of this concept to the design of soft matters such as polymers, liquid crystals, colloids, and amphiphiles has attracted a great deal of attention because dynamically functional materials can be obtained by this approach [1-33]. A new class of functional materials, supramolecular liquid crystals [7-23], and supramolecular polymers [8-16,18,20-32] have been studied, since supramolecular complexation has been shown to be useful for building the molecular structures of functional materials in neat states. Kato and Fréchet [17] and Lehn and coworkers [19] reported that liquid-crystalline low-molecular weight complexes with well-defined structures can be built through the formation of hydrogen bonds between different molecules. In these materials, molecular self-assembly processes lead to the preparation of dynamically functional molecular complexes. New properties are induced by the complexation of several molecular species. For example, generation or enhancement of liquid-crystalline behavior is observed for the mesogenic complexes [7-10]. This concept initiated the field of supramolecular polymers [8-16,18,20-32].
