Generalizing the Chiral Self-Assembly of Spheres and Tetrahedra to Non-Spherical and Polydisperse Molecules in (C70) x(C60)1- x(SnI4)2

Daniel B. Straus, Robert J. Cava

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

We describe the spontaneous chiral self-assembly of C70 with SnI4 as well as a mixture of C60 and C70 with SnI4. Macroscopic single crystals with the formula (C70)x(C60)1-x(SnI4)2 (x = 0-1) are reported. C60, which is spherical, and C70, which is ellipsoidal, form a solid solution in these crystals, and the cubic lattice parameter of the chiral phase linearly increases as x 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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4753-4756
Number of pages4
JournalNano Letters
Volume21
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 9 2021

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Chemistry
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Bioengineering
  • General Materials Science

Keywords

  • chirality
  • crystallography
  • fullerene
  • self-assembly
  • solid solution
  • symmetry

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