Metallic helices with a characteristic helical pitch (P) in the micro- or nano-scale have been proposed for diverse chirality-related primary applications. However, limit development of nanofabrication techniques leads to P &gt; 20 nm; molecules are too small in size to effectively perceive the helical chirality, and such the dimensional mismatch will substantially prohibit the development of those applications. In this talk, I will device a method to tackle this fundamental problem, through using glancing angle deposition with fast substrate rotation to produce helical nanoparticles (HNPs) that have sub-10-nm P and are composed of controllable plasmonic materials and helicity. HNPs are used to induce enantiospecific adsorption of molecules, mediate the enantiopreferential photocyclodimerization of 2-anthracenecarboxylic acid, and markedly enhance optical activity of chiral molecules in roughly one order of magnitude. These studies will pave the way to developing HNPs for significant chirality-related applications, such as heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis and determining absolute configuration of chiral molecules with high sensitivity.

Chirality-related applications of helical nanoparticles with Sub-10-nm helical pitches

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.