Nanoassembly of a Fractal Polymer: A Molecular "Sierpinski Hexagonal Gasket"
George R. Newkome,1,2*
Pingshan Wang,1
Charles N. Moorefield,1
Tae Joon Cho,1
Prabhu P. Mohapatra,1
Sinan Li,3
Seok-Ho Hwang,1
Olena Lukoyanova,5
Luis Echegoyen,5
Judith A. Palagallo,4
Violeta Iancu,6
Saw-Wai Hla6
Mathematics and art converge in the fractal forms that also
abound in nature. We used molecular self-assembly to create
a synthetic, nanometer-scale, Sierpinski hexagonal gasket. This
nondendritic, perfectly self-similar fractal macromolecule is
composed of
bis-terpyridine building blocks that are bound together
by coordination to 36 Ru and 6 Fe ions to form a nearly planar
array of increasingly larger hexagons around a hollow center.
2 Department of Chemistry, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325–4717, USA.
3 Department of Polymer Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325–4717, USA.
4 Department of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325–4717, USA.
5 Department of Chemistry, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.
6 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: newkome{at}uakron.edu
