Supramolecular electronics is the experimental field of supramolecular chemistry

Supramolecular chemistry

Supramolecular chemistry refers to the area of chemistry beyond the molecules and focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular subunits or components...

 that bridges the gap between molecular electronics

Molecular electronics

Molecular electronics, sometimes called moletronics, involves the study and application of molecular building blocks for the fabrication of electronic components...

 and bulk plastics in the construction of electronic circuitry at the nanoscale ¹. In supramolecular electronics, assemblies of pi-conjugated systems on the 5 to 100 nanometer length scale are prepared by molecular self-assembly

Molecular self-assembly

Molecular self-assembly is the process by which molecules adopt a defined arrangement without guidance or management from an outside source. There are two types of self-assembly, intramolecular self-assembly and intermolecular self-assembly...

 with the aim to fit these structures between electrode

Electrode

An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit...

s. With single-molecules as researched in molecular electronics

Molecular electronics

Molecular electronics, sometimes called moletronics, involves the study and application of molecular building blocks for the fabrication of electronic components...

 at the 5 nanometer scale this would be impractical. Nanofibers can be prepared from polymer

Polymer

A polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units. These subunits are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds...

s such as polyaniline

Polyaniline

Polyaniline is a conducting polymer of the semi-flexible rod polymer family. Although the compound itself was discovered over 150 years ago, only since the early 1980s has polyaniline captured the intense attention of the scientific community. This is due to the rediscovery of its high electrical...

 and polyacetylene

Polyacetylene

Polyacetylene is an organic polymer with the repeat unit n. The high electrical conductivity discovered for these polymers beginning in the 1960's accelerated interest in the use of organic compounds in microelectronics...

 ¹². Chiral

Chirality (chemistry)

A chiral molecule is a type of molecule that lacks an internal plane of symmetry and thus has a non-superimposable mirror image. The feature that is most often the cause of chirality in molecules is the presence of an asymmetric carbon atom....

 oligo(p-phenylenevinylene)s self-assemble in a controlled fashion into (helical) wires ³. An example of actively researched compounds in this field are certain coronene

Coronene

Coronene is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon comprising six peri-fused benzene rings. Its chemical formula is . It is a yellow material that dissolves in such solvents as benzene, toluene, and dichloromethane. Its solutions emit blue light fluorescence under UV light...

s.