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Chirality

Chirality

Chirality is a term that describes the lack of mirror symmetry in an object. In other words, chiral objects cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, our feet are chiral, as the mirror image of the left foot, the right foot, cannot be superposed on the left foot.
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...

Chirality in Nature

Chirality in Nature

Chirality is the most intriguing yet essential facet of nature, governing life’s biochemical processes and precision. It can be observed from a snail shell pattern in a macroscopic world to an amino acid, the minutest building block of life. Most of the snails around the world have right-coiled shells because of the intrinsic chirality in their genes. All the amino acids present in the human body exist in an enantiomerically pure state, except for glycine - the sole achiral amino acid.

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

Molecules that possess multiple chiral centers can afford a large number of stereoisomers. For instance, while some molecules like 2-butanol have one chiral center, defined as a tetrahedral carbon atom with four different substituents attached, several molecules like butane-2,3-diol have multiple chiral centers. A simple formula to predict the number of stereoisomers possible for a molecule with n chiral centers is 2n. However, there can be a lower number where some of the stereoisomers are...

Prochirality

Prochirality

The concept of prochirality leads to the nomenclature of the individual faces of a molecule and plays a crucial role in the enantioselective reaction. It is a concept where two or more achiral molecules react to produce chiral products. A typical process is the reaction of an achiral ketone to generate a chiral alcohol. Here, the achiral reactant reacts with an achiral reducing agent, sodium borohydride, to generate an equimolar mixture of the chiral enantiomers of the product. For example, an...

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality is most prevalent in carbon-based tetrahedral compounds, but this important facet of molecular symmetry extends to sp3-hybridized nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur centers, including trivalent molecules with lone pairs. Here, the lone pair behaves as a functional group in addition to the other three substituents to form an analogous tetrahedral center that can be chiral.
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

Stereoisomerism

Stereoisomerism

Isomerism in Complexes
Isomers are different chemical species that have the same chemical formula.
Transition metal complexes often exist as geometric isomers, in which the same atoms are connected through the same types of bonds but with differences in their orientation in space. Coordination complexes with two different ligands in the cis and trans positions from a ligand of interest form isomers. For example, the octahedral [Co(NH3)4Cl2]+ ion has two isomers (Figure 1) In the cis...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 10, 2025

Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Published on: March 5, 2019

Modular chiral origami metamaterials.

Tuo Zhao¹, Xiangxin Dang¹, Konstantinos Manos²

¹Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.

|April 24, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Researchers developed modular chiral metamaterials that decouple motion for advanced machine-like functions. These materials enable independent control over twisting and shrinking, overcoming previous limitations in deformation and coupling.

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Area of Science:

Materials Science
Mechanical Engineering
Robotics

Background:

Existing chiral metamaterials exhibit coupled, small-deformation multimodal motion, limiting their machine-like applications.
Autonomous functionality in metamaterials is desirable but hindered by coupled actuation and small strain limits (≤2%).

Purpose of the Study:

To establish modular chiral metamaterials with decoupled actuation for independent control of multimodal deformation.
To overcome the limitations of coupled motions and small deformation in previous chiral metamaterial designs.

Main Methods:

Design and fabrication of modular chiral metamaterials combining auxetic planar tessellations and origami-inspired columnar arrays.
Experimental and simulation-based analysis of deformation mechanisms under single-degree-of-freedom actuation.
Demonstration of distinct actuation conditions: twist with free translation and linear displacement with free rotation.

Main Results:

The modular metamaterial exhibits decoupled actuation, achieving large in-plane contraction (up to 25%) and out-of-plane shrinkage (over 50%).
Independent control demonstrated: twisting from 0° to 90° with free translation, and linear displacement with free rotation.
Deformation attributed to rotating-square tessellations (in-plane twist/contraction) and Kresling origami arrays (out-of-plane shrinkage).

Conclusions:

The developed modular chiral metamaterials offer routes to multimodal, multistable, and reprogrammable machines.
Potential applications include robotic transformers, thermoregulation, mechanical memories, and energy absorption systems.
The modular design enables tunable properties, scalability, and plug-and-play functionality for diverse engineering challenges.