ABSTRACT
In nature, most chemical and biological processes occur in self-organized molecular assemblies. In these assemblies, the active chemical species is confined within a small region, a few nanometers in size. In such a nanoenvironment the "local" polarity, viscosity, and pH are often vastly different from those in a bulk medium. The proximity and the favorable disposition of the reactants and the substantially altered local properties in such an assembly exert profound influence on the structure, reactivity, and dynamics of the confined chemical species. Chemistry in organized media differs markedly from that in any homogeneous fluid medium and mimics the extremely efficient chemical processes in the biological systems [1-6]. Photophysical processes in organized assemblies are interesting particularly for two reasons. First, in many organized assemblies the rate of some photophysical processes changes dramatically by three to four orders of magnitude. Second, the remarkable sensitivity of the photophysical processes to the environment can be utilized to probe the local properties of the organized assemblies.
