Fig. 5. Different reaction pathways for the CuAAC oligomerization of an alkyne-azide monomer in the presence and absence of a complementary 3-mer template. In the untemplated pathway (top channel), all reactions are intermolecular processes, and the product distribution is governed by the reaction rate constants (k and k′) and the concentrations of the monomer and chain capping agent. In the templated pathway (bottom channel), intramolecular reactions between monomers bound to the template are favoured by the kinetic effective molarity (EM^†). If the association constants (K₁ and K₂) and the EM^† are sufficiently high, the templated duplex will be the major product.