Title
Photonically Active Bowtie Nanoassemblies with Chirality Continuum
Author
Kumar, Prashant, Thi Vo, Minjeong Cha, Anastasia Visheratina, Ji-Young Kim, Wenqian Xu, Jonathan Schwartz, Alexander Simon, Daniel Katz, Valentin Paul Nicu, Emanuele Marino, Won Jin Choi, Michael Veksler, Si Chen, Christopher Murray, Robert Hovden, Sharon Glotzer, and Nicholas A. Kotov
Year
2023
Journal
Nature
Abstract
Chirality is a geometrical property described by continuous mathematical functions1–5. However, in chemical disciplines, chirality is often treated as a binary left or right characteristic of molecules rather than a continuity of chiral shapes. Although they are theoretically possible, a family of stable chemical structures with similar shapes and progressively tuneable chirality is yet unknown. Here we show that nanostructured microparticles with an anisotropic bowtie shape display chirality continuum and can be made with widely tuneable twist angle, pitch, width, thickness and length. The self-limited assembly of the bowties enables high synthetic reproducibility, size monodispersity and computational predictability of their geometries for different assembly conditions6. The bowtie nanoassemblies show several strong circular dichroism peaks originating from absorptive and scattering phenomena. Unlike classical chiral molecules, these particles show a continuum of chirality measures2 that correlate exponentially with the spectral positions of the circular dichroism peaks. Bowtie particles with variable polarization rotation were used to print photonically active metasurfaces with spectrally tuneable positive or negative polarization signatures for light detection and ranging (LIDAR) devices.
Full Article
Instrument
J-1700
Keywords
self limited assembly,light detection and ranging(LIDAR),bowtie nanoassemblies