Realizations
Molecular Borromean rings are the molecular counterparts of Borromean rings, which are mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures. In 1997, biologists Chengde Mao and coworkers of New York University succeeded in constructing a set of rings from DNA. In 2003, chemist Fraser Stoddart and coworkers at UCLA utilised coordination chemistry to construct a set of rings in one step from 18 components.
A quantum-mechanical analog of Borromean rings, called an Efimov state, was predicted by physicist Vitaly Efimov in 1970. A team of physicists led by Randall Hulet of Rice University in Houston achieved this with a set of three bound lithium atoms and published their findings in the online journal Science Express. In 2010, a team led by K. Tanaka created an Efimov state within a nucleus.
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