Chirality and energy transfer amplified circularly polarized luminescence in composite nanohelix

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 8; no. 1; p. 15727
• Main Authors: Yang, Dong, Duan, Pengfei, Zhang, Li, Liu, Minghua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06-06-2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/131; 639/638/298/923/1027; 639/638/541; 639/638/541/966; Energy; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Nanoscience; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Beijing China; China
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15727

Transfer of both chirality and energy information plays an important role in biological systems. Here we show a chiral donor π-gelator and assembled it with an achiral π-acceptor to see how chirality and energy can be transferred in a composite donor–acceptor system. It is found that the individual chiral gelator can self-assemble into nanohelix. In the presence of the achiral acceptor, the self-assembly can also proceed and lead to the formation of the composite nanohelix. In the composite nanohelix, an energy transfer is realized. Interestingly, in the composite nanohelix, the achiral acceptor can both capture the supramolecular chirality and collect the circularly polarized energy from the chiral donor, showing both supramolecular chirality and energy transfer amplified circularly polarized luminescence (ETACPL).
Energy and chirality transfer play a crucial role in living systems. Here, the authors show that achiral acceptors and chiral donor gelators can assemble in a chirally-controlled manner into a supramolecular nanohelix that can additionally harvest circularly polarized energy.