Chiral induction with chiral conformational switches in the limit of low "sergeants to soldiers" ratio.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 24960454.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/nn502097h.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Molecular-level insights into chiral adsorption phenomena are highly relevant within the fields of asymmetric heterogeneous catalysis or chiral separation and may contribute to understand the origins of homochirality in nature. Here, we investigate chiral induction by the "sergeants and soldiers" mechanism for an oligo(phenylene ethynylene) based chiral conformational switch by coadsorbing it with an intrinsically chiral seed on Au(111). Through statistical analysis of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) data, we demonstrate successful chiral induction with a very low concentration of seeding molecules down to 3%. The microscopic mechanism for the observed chiral induction is suggested to involve nucleation of the intrinsically chiral seeds, allowing for effective transfer and amplification of chirality to large numbers of soldier target molecules.