Fundamental and applied aspects of urea and thiourea inclusion compounds

Urea and thiourea inclusion compounds are well known to exhibit a wide range of fundamentally important physico-chemical properties, and through the work of many research groups, these materials have served as model systems for exploring a range of issues of wider relevance to other classes of organic solids. While continuing to investigate these issues, our research in recent years has also focused on issues of a more applied nature, including crystal growth processes, guest exchange processes, the design and development of X-ray dichroic filter materials, and the development of strategies for direct experimental determination of intermolecular interaction energies. This article presents a brief overview of fundamental properties of urea and thiourea inclusion compounds, and reviews some of our recent work in the specific areas identified above.