Themed collection Editor’s Choice collection: Chiral Functional Materials

Materials Horizons Editorial Board Member Professor Yong Cui (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China) introduces this Editor’s Choice collection on Chiral Functional Materials.

The spin polarized transport properties of chiral organic biomolecules, hybrid organic–inorganic materials and inorganic materials are reviewed, where the theoretical mechanisms and experimental techniques of chiral induced spin selectivity are summarized.

The slighter distortion of the symmetric rac-F crystal restrains the non-radiative decay and engenders intriguing luminescence. However, chiral ligand leads to polar lattice distortion, sparking off the outstanding second-order NLO responses.

A pair of 3D hybrid rare-earth double perovskites with large piezoelectric responses and CPL was constructed by introducing chirality. This study provides a strategy to prepare high-performance molecule-based piezoelectric and CPL materials.

A joint experimental and theoretical study is performed for the magnetic field manipulation of circularly polarized photoluminescence in chiral perovskites, in order to reveal the chirality-induced spin–orbit coupling.

Starting from a chiral resolution of 2-ethylhexanoic acid followed by conversions of functional groups without interfering with the enantiopurity, we have successfully introduced an enantiopure 2-ethylhexyl group on to dinaphtho[2,3-b:2′,3′-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DNTT) via a Negishi-coupling reaction to synthesize 2-(R)-(2-ethylhexyl)- and 2-(S)-(2-ethylhexyl)-DNTT (R- and S-EH-DNTT, respectively).

D–π*–A type planar chiral TADF emitters were synthesized and the enantiomer-based CP-OLEDs exhibited EQE_max of up to 20.1%.

A 3D laser printing technique for realizing unprecedented stereo-chiral-luminescent silver nanostructures was developed to achieve a record-high fluorescent anisotropic factor.

The first chiral nanozyme with higher activity than the natural enzyme is designed based on mimicking the natural enzyme and covalent organic frameworks.

Further assembly of helical self-assemblies is exploited to further boost the dissymmetry factor and obtain the largest magnification of circularly-polarized luminescence.

Chirality amplification in mesomorphic gold nanoparticles (NPs) functionalized with chiral ligands and liquid crystal (LC) groups in LC matrices is detected. Attaching LC groups to NPs leads to a significant increase of the helical twisting power.