Hydrogen Bond Chains in Foldamers and Dynamic Foldamers

Nature uses the hydrogen bond to stabilize structures or transition states and to communicate information. This chapter discusses hydrogen bonding in these roles but in the context of synthetic analogs of biomolecules or foldamers. Hydrogen bond is a driving force for folding synthetic oligomers, and the chapter outlines the spectroscopic methods for the characterization of hydrogen-bonded foldamer conformations. It describes the use of hydrogen-bonded groups to communicate information by inducing screw-sense preference in helical foldamers. A hydrogen bond is also a directional interaction, and – by analogy with its use in the genetic code – it can be treated as a form of binary information. Molecular devices are discussed that use hydrogen-bond directionality as a means of communicating information within and between molecules.