Supramolecular engineering of guanine-based self-assembled architectures at surfaces and interfaces

The self-assembly of small organic molecules interacting via non-covalent forces is a viable approach towards the generation of highly ordered nanostructured materials. Among various molecular building blocks, supramolecular architectures with specific motifs can be obtained trough self-association of natural nucleobases on flat surfaces. Such structures can be used as scaffolds to position electrically/optically active units in pre-determined locations in 2D, thereby paving the way towards materials suitable for a wide range of applications, e.g. in electronic, spintronics and optical devices