En Route to a Chiral Melanin: The Dynamic "From-Imprinted-to-Template" Supramolecular Role of Porphyrin Hetero-Aggregates During the Oxidative Polymerization of L-DOPA

Characterization of Chirality in Diffractive Metasurfaces by Photothermal Deflection Technique

Chirality, a lack of mirror symmetry, is present in nature at all scales; at the nanoscale, it governs the biochemical reactions of many molecules, influencing their pharmacology and toxicity. Chiral substances interact with left and right circularly polarized light differently, but this difference is very minor in natural materials. Specially engineered, nanostructured, periodic materials can enhance the chiro-optical effects if the symmetry in their interactions with circular polarization is broken. In the diffraction range of such metasurfaces, the intensity of diffracted orders depends on the chirality of the input beam. In this work, we combine a photothermal deflection experiment with a novel theoretical framework to reconstruct both the thermal and optical behavior of chiro-optical behavior in diffracted beams.

Rational Design of Chiral Nanohelices from Self-Assembly of Meso-tetrakis (4-Carboxyphenyl) Porphyrin-Amino Acid Conjugates

In this article, meso-tetrakis (4-carboxyphenyl) porphyrins modified with different amino acids were designed, synthesized, and researched. The chiral self-assembly behavior of these porphyrin-amino acid molecules can be precisely controlled by adjusting the pH, constituent amino acids, and temperature, thereby giving rise to chiral nanostructures with precisely tailored helical pitch and handedness. This research provides a certain reference for the design and preparation of chiral nanomaterials and has potential application prospects in chiral resolution and chiral catalysis.