Polyhedral boranes in the nanoworld

Aromatic polyhedral boranes and carboranes lend themselves to the construction of nanoesque structures suited for unique applications. These include cyclic, water-soluble hosts having a lipophilic core; self-assembling nanorods and bilayer membranes using amphiphilic carborane derivatives; and the huge family of functional structures obtainable from the [closo-B 1 2 (OH) 1 2 ] 2 - by derivatization of the hydroxyl groups. The latter species are potentially useful for molecular delivery devices important to biomedicine and material science. New developments in each of these areas of interest will be presented.