ABSTRACT
Generating specific functionality of supramolecular assemblies based on tailormade molecular building blocks has been quite successful in the past [1,2] and certainly will continue to be of increasing importance in the future. Thus far the underlying design concepts are largely based on intuition and on simple theoretical concepts. More detailed theories of supramolecular assembly face the principal challenge of predicting structural and dynamic properties of very complex macroscopic or mesoscopic systems based on the microscopic interactions of their constituent molecular units. Most likely predictions of this type will not come from analytic theory but rather will become possible in the future using computer modeling. Here we pursue a less ambitious goal. We review theoretical concepts describing the structural phase behavior of reversibly assembling systems forming lyotropic liquid-crystalline phases of polymeric aggregates (cf. [36]). In the same context we also take a brief look over the fence and discuss the current possibilities of computer modeling, for both detailed molecular force fields as well as coarse-grained interactions.
