The aims in this Research Area are to rationally control energy landscapes of atomic/molecular organized structures, by developing new fundamental methodologies to intentionally control the arrangement and orientation of the atoms/molecules, and to create generic technologies for realizing chemical, physical or biological functions that are unique to those organized structures.
The research fields cover a wide range of molecular-, supramolecular- and nano-materials, including organic molecules, biomolecules, polymers, metal ions, metal complexes, inorganic compounds, metallic clusters, nanocarbon and so forth. For example, (i) functional molecules and nanomaterials with their internal chemical bonding between homo-or-hetero atoms precisely controlled, and (ii) oligomeric, polymeric or supramolecular materials with the constituting molecular sequence precisely regulated via covalent or non-covalent bonding could be involved as the target molecules (or materials), and studies on their intramolecular structuring or sequence-controlled intermolecular assembly in solution, at surfaces or interfaces or in the solid-state will be involved. It will require the ability to control their hierarchical structures in arbitrary (1-, 2- and 3-) dimensions and sizes ranging from the subnano-, nano-, meso- to the macroscopic scales. This Research Area focuses on the development of methodologies or techniques for intentionally controlling ― with precision on the level of organic chemistry ― the sequence and orientation of the respective structural elements, nanostructures, functional units of interest in the atomic/molecularly organized systems obtained thereby. Furthermore, it also involves the studies on technologies and theoretical/computational science techniques for characterization of the electronics states and energy landscapes of the obtained superstructures at the atomic and single-molecular levels. It is essential that these approaches to control and characterize the alignment (sequence-)/orientation-/assembly-controlled structures are directed to create specific functions peculiar to these superstructures. Accordingly, all the studies need to elucidate the correlation between the controlled structures and the specific functions ― such as electronic, magnetic, optical functions or chemical functions (we define these as molecular system’s functions) ― created for the first time by intentionally controlling the atomic/molecular arrangement/orientation structures. The systematization of the acquired scientific knowledge would provide a basis for the creation and development of science for molecular systems.