Self‐Assembled Chiral Copper Superstructures with Enhanced Circularly Polarized Light Emission

Abstract

AbstractSelf‐assembled chiral superstructures represent an emerging class of chiral materials that can possess unique and collective chiroptical properties superior to their building blocks. However, facile construction of such chiral assemblies, especially those with circularly polarized light emission (CPLE), is still challenging. Here, a simple solution‐based self‐assembly of colloidal chiral superstructures from copper‐penicillamine nanosheets is reported. These chiral copper superstructures feature flower‐like morphology, and exhibit CPLE that is significantly stronger than their unassembled counterparts. In addition, the handedness and the morphology complexity of the superstructures can be independently manipulated by the chirality of penicillamine enantiomers and self‐assembly process, respectively. Besides the structural manipulation, CPLE property can be tuned by doping with other metal ions such as silver. The unique chiroptical and colloidal properties of the chiral copper superstructures as well as the simplicity of the self‐assembly enable rational design of CPLE materials with hierarchical chirality and may advance the applications in chiral sensing, asymmetric catalysis, and novel optoelectronics.