Functional chiral assemblies widely exist in nature, including right-handed B-form double helix of DNA and spiral-like sucrose non-fermenting protein 7 (Snf7), which play crucial roles in various physiological processes. In the past decade, the scientific community has made a noble effort to mimic chiral nanostructures in nature, such as helix, gyroid, toroid, and spiral. These specific functional structures have been obtained in solution systems and display a great value in advanced materials. However, the evolution of chirality morphology from molecules to the micro-scale spiral is still a black box, and it remains a challenge to construct spiral structures with chiral optical properties in solid film systems. In this work, we built a micron-sized chiral three-dimensional (3D) spiral structure in chiral molecules doped liquid crystalline block copolymer composite film by thermal annealing treatment. The micron-scale spiral structures exhibit UV light-responsive erasure and thermal regeneration behavior, which is expected to realize the information storage function of the chiral structures.

Exogenous chiral molecules induce chiral controllable spiral self-assembly of liquid crystalline block copolymers

ACS Spring 2022

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