Controlling the crystallization of materials-be it in solution or on surfaces, is of immense scientific and technological importance. This is because of the fact that various functional properties of materials are ultimately determined by the way in which molecules pack in crystals. One of the fascinating implications of this process is the propensity of certain materials to crystallize into non-superimposable opposite handed crystals that are related to each other by mirror image symmetry. In this contribution, we demonstrate a strategy to control the 2D crystallization of an organic molecule by controlling the nucleation and ripening processes transpiring at the liquid-solid interface. By careful choice of chiral dopant molecules and using a temperature assisted ripening process we illustrate how one can selectively stabilize or destabilize enantiomorphous molecular domains such that the handedness of the surface-confined network can be precisely controlled in a preprogrammed fashion. These results will have far-reaching implications in the strategies to control surface crystallization of materials.

Controlling the nucleation, growth, and ripening of surface-confined supramolecular networks: Implications to induction of homochirality on surfaces

247th National Meeting (2014)

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