Controlling growth of novel solid-state materials via discrete molybdenum-oxide-based building blocks as synthons

The understanding of the fundamental principles behind the growth of materials from discrete molecules to new solid-state materials is presently a great challenge, Herein novel nanoscale polyoxometalate clusters with circular and spherical topologies are described and examples that have application in the study of molecular growth processes are highlighted, This is because it is non possible to control the formation of solid-state structures from certain types of polyoxometalate fragments that can be described as synthon-based building blocks. This ability, combined with the enormous number of mays that these building blocks can be linked together, is opening completely new and fascinating avenues for the synthesis of solid-state structures with predesigned properties. (C) 2000 Academic Press.