The Formation of Supramolecular Chiral Materials from Achiral Molecules Using a Liquid-Crystallin System: Symmetry Breaking, Amplification, and Transfer

Recently, the formation of chiral materials by the self-organization of achiral small molecules has attracted much attention. How can we obtain chirality without a chiral source? Interesting approaches, such as mechanical rotation, circularly polarized light, and asymmetric reaction fields, have bee...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCrystals (Basel) Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 97
Main Author Yoshizawa, Atsushi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2024
Subjects
Amplification
Broken symmetry
Chiral materials
chiral transfer
Chirality
Circular polarization
Handedness
helical polymers
Investigations
Liquid crystals
Molecular structure
Polarized light
Polymer films
Polymerization
Polymers
Self-assembly
Solvents
Symmetry
symmetry breaking
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Summary:Recently, the formation of chiral materials by the self-organization of achiral small molecules has attracted much attention. How can we obtain chirality without a chiral source? Interesting approaches, such as mechanical rotation, circularly polarized light, and asymmetric reaction fields, have been used. We describe recent research developments in supramolecular chirality in liquid crystals, focusing primarily on our group’s experimental results. We present the following concepts in this review. Spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking in self-assembled achiral trimers induces supramolecular chirality in the soft crystalline phase. Two kinds of domains with opposite handedness exist in non-equal populations. The dominant domain is amplified to produce a homochiral state. Chirality is transferred to a polymer film during the polymerization of achiral monomers by using the homochiral state as a template. Finally, we discuss how the concepts obtained from this liquid crystal research relate to the origin of homochirality in life.
ISSN:2073-4352
2073-4352
DOI:10.3390/cryst14010097