Turing patterns by supramolecular self-assembly of a single salphen building block

In the 1950s, Alan Turing showed that concerted reactions and diffusion of activating and inhibiting chemical species can autonomously generate patterns without previous positional information, thus providing a chemical basis for morphogenesis in Nature. However, access to these patterns from only one molecular component that contained all the necessary information to execute agonistic and antagonistic signaling is so far an elusive goal, since two or more participants with different diffusivities are a must. Here, we report on a single-molecule system that generates Turing patterns arrested in the solid state, where supramolecular interactions are used instead of chemical reactions, whereas diffusional differences arise from heterogeneously populated self-assembled products. We employ a family of hydroxylated organic salphen building blocks based on a bis-Schiff-base scaffold with portions responsible for either activation or inhibition of assemblies at different hierarchies through purely supramolecular reactions, only depending upon the solvent dielectric constant and evaporationas fuel.

Automated summary

In the 1950s, Alan Turing demonstrated that coordinated reactions and diffusion can produce patterns without positional information, providing a chemical basis for morphogenesis. However, accessing these patterns using only one molecular component remains challenging.