Towards a Supramolecular Photochemistry: Assembly of Molecular Components to Obtain Photochemical Molecular Devices

Supramolecular photochemistry is an emerging and rapidly growing research area, most attractive from a fundamental point of view and very promising for a variety of applications. An appropriate assembly of molecular components capable of performing light-induced functions can be called a photochemical molecular device (PMD). The most important functions that can be performed by PMDs are (i) generation and migration of electronic energy, (ii) photoinduced vectorial transport of electric charge, (iii) photoinduced conformational changes, and (iv) control and tuning of photochemical and photophysical properties. The aim of this paper is to describe PMDs, to review their possible applications, to single out their molecular components, and to examine the requirements needed for these components and for the entire device.