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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.

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...

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...

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

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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...

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

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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 of Cyclic Compounds

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In this lesson, we delve into the role of ring conformation and its stability, which determines the spatial arrangement and, consequently, the molecular symmetry and stereoisomerism of cyclic compounds. 1,2-Dimethylcyclohexane is used as a case study to evaluate the possible number of stereoisomers. Here, given the multiple (n = 2) chiral centers, there are 2n = 4 possible configurations that lack a plane of symmetry, as the ring skeleton exists in a non-planar chair conformation. In addition,...

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Chirality Transfer and Induction Across Multiscales Using Chiral Plasmonic Structures and Macroscopic Deformation.

Yousang Won¹, Jeongwoo Lee¹, Yoon Ho Lee²

¹School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Institute of Chemical Processes, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu,, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.

Accounts of Chemical Research

|December 8, 2025

Summary

Chiral plasmonic structures (CPSs) offer enhanced light-matter interactions for advanced technologies. Macroscopic deformations enable the fabrication of novel CPSs with tunable chiroptical responses.

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Area of Science:

Plasmonics
Materials Science
Optics

Background:

Chiral materials are crucial for next-generation technologies like displays and optical communications due to their interaction with circularly polarized light (CPL).
Molecularly chiral materials often exhibit low chiroptical activity and inefficient light conversion, limiting their applications.
Chiral plasmonic structures (CPSs) are being developed to overcome these limitations, offering strong and tunable interactions with CPL.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the mechanisms of chirality transfer and induction in CPSs.
To highlight fabrication strategies for CPSs, emphasizing the role of macroscopic deformations.
To discuss the potential of CPSs for advanced chiroptical applications and future research directions.

Main Methods:

Focus on macroscopic deformations (twisting, rotating, stretching, etc.) to fabricate CPSs.
Induction of plasmonic chirality by breaking symmetry in achiral plasmonic structures.
Tuning chiroptical responses (circular dichroism, optical rotatory dispersion) via mechanical modulation.

Main Results:

Macroscopic deformations enable the creation of novel CPSs with encoded micro- and nanoscale chirality.
CPSs exhibit strong, tunable, and reconfigurable chiroptical responses across a wide spectral range (UV to THz).
These structures facilitate efficient conversion of optical signals for chiroptical applications.

Conclusions:

CPSs, particularly those fabricated using macroscopic deformations, show great promise for CPL sensors, emitters, and photonic devices.
Further research into hybrid fabrication methods and novel deformation techniques is needed to advance chiral plasmonics.
The ability to dynamically tune chiroptical properties opens new avenues for light-matter interaction manipulation.