Recently, the research group of Prof. He Tian has been invited to contribute a review article entitled “Photoresponsive Host–Guest Functional Systems” in Chem. Rev. for the upcoming “2015 supramolecular chemistry” special issue.（Chem. Rev. 2015, DOI: 10.1021/cr5006342, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cr5006342）

    Recently, host−guest molecular recognition has played an important role in the development of advanced supramolecular systems or materials because of their good selectivity, high efficiency, and stimuli-responsiveness. The well-established host-guest interaction has been utilized to construct various supramolecular functional systems. In this comprehensive review article, the authors have highlighted a selection of important accomplishments of photoresponsive host-guest functional systems, in particular, to demonstrate how light is used to realize the controllable capture and release of guest molecules from host molecules, and how to construct photoresponsive mechanically interlocked molecule to realize light-induced mechanical motion by taking advantage of the well-established host-guest interactions. The article also discussed the construction and potential application of photoresponsive supramolecular polymers and surface-mounted host-guest systems.

    This work was supported by the National Basic Research 973 Program and NSFC/China hosted by Prof. He Tian and the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups by Prof Yitao Long.