Locking self-assembly: strategies and outcomes

In the last ten to fifteen years, self-assembly has been increasingly employed to construct discrete supramolecular structures. In most cases, due to the thermodynamic factors that drive the self-assembly process, the final architectures produced by this approach are not kinetically robust. Thus, when robust structures are required a "self-assembly followed by covalent modification" strategy has been commonly applied. However, over the last decade an alternative strategy has emerged. Several methods for "locking" self-assembly, and thus yielding kinetically inert products have been developed. This review outlines the main strategies that have been employed towards such aims and describes some of the properties that result from the enhanced stability of product architectures.