2026.08.05

Published in Nature Communications: Microchiral Pinwheel Arrays from Achiral Molecules

Our paper on microchiral pinwheel arrays built from achiral molecules has been published in Nature Communications.

Schematic and polarized optical microscope images of clockwise and counter-clockwise pinwheel domains formed by an achiral liquid crystal in microchannels under an electric field — Figure from Han et al., Nat. Commun. 2026, 17, 9413, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Chirality usually has to be built into the molecules themselves. In this work, an achiral nematic liquid crystal confined in microchannels and driven by an in-plane electric field breaks mirror symmetry on its own, forming regular arrays of clockwise and counter-clockwise pinwheel domains. Adding less than 1 wt% of a chiral dopant biases this process so that a single handedness is selected over large areas.

Using chemical vapor polymerization, we then fixed these structures into chiral polymer nanofiber scaffolds that remain after the liquid crystal is removed. Achiral emitters coated on the scaffolds show circularly polarized luminescence whose sign follows the handedness of the scaffold.

This work was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Dong Ki Yoon (KAIST) and Prof. Kyung Jin Lee (Chungnam National University).

J. Y. Han, W. K. Park, B. Noh, F. Araoka, S. Jeong, B. H. Jhun, Y. You, Y. Park, K. J. Lee*, J.-M. Heo*, D. K. Yoon*, Nat. Commun. 17, 9413 (2026).

Full text: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76089-z