Issue 3, 2023

Transmitting biomolecular chirality into carbon nanodots: a facile approach to acquire chiral light emission at the nanoscale

Abstract

Since the observation of chirality at the nanoscale, research focused towards the design and synthesis of optically active nanomaterials has been at a brisk pace. In this regard, carbon based zero dimensional nanomaterials have attracted vast attention due to their rich optical properties, abundance of raw materials, minimal environmental hazardousness, good solubility, and ease of surface modification. However, efforts focused towards the synthesis of chiral carbon nanodots exhibiting optical activity both in their ground and excited states are rather scarce. Herein, we report a facile synthetic approach for the preparation of three sets of intrinsically chiral carbon nanodots that exhibit intense circularly polarized luminescence. Synthesis under optimized conditions using L- and D-isomers of the chiral precursors led to the formation of carbon nanodots that displayed mirror image circular dichroism and circularly polarized luminescence signals revealing their ground and excited state chirality. The experimental results are supportive of the reported core–shell model comprising an achiral carbon core that is enclosed within an amorphous shell contributing to the chiral luminescence. The luminescence anisotropy and wavelength could be tuned by varying the experimental conditions such as temperature and pH. The chiral emissive properties of the nanoparticles could be demonstrated in free-standing polymeric films revealing their potential to be used as chiral light emitting agents in optical devices, data storage and security tags. Being the first observation of intrinsic circularly polarized luminescence from a range of carbon nanodots, both in the solution and solid state, we envisage that the work will open new avenues for the investigation of excited stated chirality at the nanoscale.

Graphical abstract: Transmitting biomolecular chirality into carbon nanodots: a facile approach to acquire chiral light emission at the nanoscale

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
18 okt 2022
Accepted
26 nov 2022
First published
28 nov 2022
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 491-498

Transmitting biomolecular chirality into carbon nanodots: a facile approach to acquire chiral light emission at the nanoscale

S. Maniappan, K. L. Reddy and J. Kumar, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 491 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC05794H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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