Generalizing the Chiral Self-Assembly of Spheres and Tetrahedra to Non-Spherical and Polydisperse Molecules in (C<sub>70</sub>)<i><sub><i>x</i></sub></i>(C<sub>60</sub>)<sub>1-<i>x</i></sub>(SnI<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34014669.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c01181.
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Abstract
We describe the spontaneous chiral self-assembly of C<sub>70</sub> with SnI<sub>4</sub> as well as a mixture of C<sub>60</sub> and C<sub>70</sub> with SnI<sub>4</sub>. Macroscopic single crystals with the formula (C<sub>70</sub>)<i><sub><i>x</i></sub></i>(C<sub>60</sub>)<sub>1-<i>x</i></sub>(SnI<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub> (<i>x</i> = 0-1) are reported. C<sub>60,</sub> which is spherical, and C<sub>70</sub>, which is ellipsoidal, form a solid solution in these crystals, and the cubic lattice parameter of the chiral phase linearly increases as <i>x</i> grows from 0 to 1 in accordance with Vegard's law. Our results demonstrate that nonspherical particles and polydispersity are not an impediment to the growth of chiral crystals from high-symmetry achiral precursors, providing a route to assemble achiral particles including colloidal nanocrystals and engineered nanostructures into chiral materials without the need to use external templates or forces.