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Controlling assembly-induced symmetry-breaking by tuning the vortex-responsive nanostructures

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Abstract

The generation of chirality in supramolecular structures from achiral building blocks has remained a challenge for a long time. In this study, we present a vortex-assisted chiral supramolecular polymerization from a series of achiral C3-symmetric monomers, where the mechanism of symmetry-breaking is systematically investigated. By increasing the supersaturation, at the early stage of nucleation and growth, highly ordered assemblies can be generated as the initial chiral nuclei. Meanwhile, chiral assemblies from high supersaturation are hard to interwind into clusters, where clusters as nuclei are not conducive to being fractured by sheer force of vortex fluid. Therefore, it is concluded that chiral assemblies in the nucleation stage possess low energy barrier, so that chiral nuclei could be fractured and replicated by the vortex. By enlarging the initial chiral bias, the major chiral nuclei can evolute into the final chiral polymers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52173159 and 92256304), the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (No. JQ21003), and the National Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (No. 2021YFA1200303). Numerical computations were performed on Hefei advanced computing center.

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  1. Chengxi Li and Kang Huang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), Beijing, 100190, China

    Chengxi Li, Kang Huang, Chen Xiao, Yonghong Shi & Pengfei Duan

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Chengxi Li, Kang Huang, Yonghong Shi & Pengfei Duan

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  1. Chengxi Li
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Correspondence to Pengfei Duan.

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Li, C., Huang, K., Xiao, C. et al. Controlling assembly-induced symmetry-breaking by tuning the vortex-responsive nanostructures. Nano Res. 16, 13450–13456 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5850-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5850-4

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