Chiral Mesostructured Inorganic Materials with Optical Chiral Response

Fabricating chiral inorganic materials and revealing their unique quantum confinement-determined optical chiral responses are crucial tasks in the multidisciplinary fields of chemistry, physics, and biology. The field of chiral mesostructured inorganic materials started from the synthesis of individual nanocrystals and evolved to include their assembly from metals, semiconductors, ceramics, and inorganic salts endowed with various chiral structures ranging from atomic to micron scales. This tutorial review highlights the recent research on chiral mesostructured inorganic materials, especially the novel expression of mesostructured chirality and endowed optical chiral response, and it may inspire us with new strategies for the design of chiral inorganic materials and new opportunities beyond the traditional applications of chirality. Fabrication methods for chiral mesostructured inorganic materials are classified according to chirality type, scale, and symmetry-breaking mechanism. Special attention is given to highlight systems with original discoveries, exceptional phenomena, or unique mechanisms of optical chiral response for left- and right-handedness.

Oriented Chiral DNA-Silica Film Guided by a Natural Mica Substrate

The formation of highly ordered chiral organic/inorganic films with high density and long-range orientation is important in constructing chiral devices, such as broadband polarization devices, liquid-crystal displays, or negative-reflection materials. A feasible strategy is presented to fabricate three-dimensional mesostructured chiral DNA-silica assemblies into large-scale oriented arrangements. The highly ordered film was aligned by a mica crystal substrate with the bridging effect of suitable divalent metal ions, followed by the growth of the DNA-silica composite by bottom-up assembly with a "quartet templating" method. This simple and effective route would perform well in the alignment and arrangement of highly charged biomolecules, such as polypeptides, proteins, viruses, and their inorganic assemblies, and furthermore could allow the fabrication of chiral optical materials with long-range ordering.

Silica biomineralization via the self-assembly of helical biomolecules

The biomimetic synthesis of relevant silica materials using biological macromolecules as templates via silica biomineralization processes attract rapidly rising attention toward natural and artificial materials. Biomimetic synthesis studies are useful for improving the understanding of the formation mechanism of the hierarchical structures found in living organisms (such as diatoms and sponges) and for promoting significant developments in the biotechnology, nanotechnology and materials chemistry fields. Chirality is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature and is an inherent feature of biomolecular components in organisms. Helical biomolecules, one of the most important types of chiral macromolecules, can self-assemble into multiple liquid-crystal structures and be used as biotemplates for silica biomineralization, which renders them particularly useful for fabricating complex silica materials under ambient conditions. Over the past two decades, many new silica materials with hierarchical structures and complex morphologies have been created using helical biomolecules. In this review, the developments in this field are described and the recent progress in silica biomineralization templating using several classes of helical biomolecules, including DNA, polypeptides, cellulose and rod-like viruses is summarized. Particular focus is placed on the formation mechanism of biomolecule-silica materials (BSMs) with hierarchical structures. Finally, current research challenges and future developments are discussed in the conclusion.

Immobilizing and de-immobilizing enzymes on mesoporous silica

β-Glucosidase was immobilised as a model enzyme within silica mesocellular foam (MCF) at a high loading, further entrapped to achieve higher stability and released unharmed upon need by applying fluoride buffered solutions.

Growth of optically active chiral inorganic films through DNA self-assembly and silica mineralisation

The circularly polarized reflection of nature is due to their distinct azimuthally twisted or helical character in the nanostructure of the surface films. Although many chiral inorganic powders have been successfully synthesised, the artificial synthesis of chiral inorganic films is rare. Herein, we reported a facile synthetic route for the growth of monolayered chiral film on the quaternary ammonium-modified silicon substrate. The films grew on the substrate surface because of the strong electrostatic interaction between positively charged quaternary ammonium groups and negatively charged phosphate groups of DNA, with subsequent growth to right-handed, vertically aligned, impeller-like helical architectures with left-handed two-dimensional square p4mm-structured DNA chiral packing. The DNA-silica composite films exhibited strong optical activity at 295 nm and in the range of 400-800 nm, corresponding to DNA chiral packing (absorption) and to the helical blade in the impeller (scattering), respectively. Upon removal of DNA templates, the pure inorganic impeller-like helical morphology was maintained; consequently, the scattering-based optical response was blue-shifted approximately 200 nm as a result of a decrease in the effective average refractive index. The hierarchical structures were reflected from the surfaces by cross-polarised light, which confirmed that the films were strongly birefringent, with long-range anisotropy.