Degree of molecular self-sorting in multicomponent systems

Abstract

Self-sorting represents the spontaneous and high fidelity self and/or non-self-recognition of two or more related components within a complex mixture. While the effective management of self-sorting principles perceptibly requires some key expertise in molecular programming, at a higher stage of operation it is of supreme interest to guide the process to increasingly higher degrees of self-sorting. In this article, we present the emerging principles of how to guide several components toward formation of self-sorted multicomponent architectures. To provide further guidance in denominating such systems, we suggest to utilise a systematic classification as well as a formula to evaluate their degree of self-sorting (M).