Cooperative expression of atomic chirality in inorganic nanostructures

• Published in: Nature communications 2017-02, Vol.8 (1), p.14312-9, Article 14312
• Main Authors: Wang, Peng-peng, Yu, Shang-Jie, Govorov, Alexander O, Ouyang, Min
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 119/118; 639/624/399; 639/925/357; Handedness; Humanities and Social Sciences; Morphology; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14312

Cooperative chirality phenomena extensively exist in biomolecular and organic systems via intra- and inter-molecular interactions, but study of inorganic materials has been lacking. Here we report, experimentally and theoretically, cooperative chirality in colloidal cinnabar mercury sulfide nanocrystals that originates from chirality interplay between the crystallographic lattice and geometric morphology at different length scales. A two-step synthetic scheme is developed to allow control of critical parameters of these two types of handedness, resulting in different chiral interplays expressed as observables through materials engineering. Furthermore, we adopt an electromagnetic model with the finite element method to elucidate cooperative chirality in inorganic systems, showing excellent agreement with experimental results. Our study enables an emerging class of nanostructures with tailored cooperative chirality that is vital for fundamental understanding of nanoscale chirality as well as technology applications based on new chiroptical building blocks. Cooperative chirality is common in organic and biomolecular systems but is rarely explored in inorganic materials. Here, the authors combine synthesis and theory to uncover cooperative chirality in inorganic nanocrystals, arising from the interplay of independently-controlled crystallographic and morphological chirality.