Fluorescent chiral nanostructures based on poly(diphenylacetylene)s

In nature, helical structure is present in a lot of biomolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids or polysaccharides. It’s also known this secondary structure is directly related with the properties of those molecules. For this reason, scientific community has expended time and effort to obtain new molecules that can adopt the helical structure to be able of emulating the functions and properties of biomolecules. Thus, helical polymers born.

Dynamic helical polymers have been widely studied due to the potential of these materials to act as sensors, chiral stationary phases to chromatographic separation or chiral catalyst because of the helical sense control via external stimuli.

Metals are one of the most employed external stimuli for modifying the structure of helical polymers. In poly(phenylacetylene)s it’s known that can act as crosslinking agent among polymer chains, inverse the helical sense or enhance the initial helicity. Finally, nanostructures like nanospheres, nanorods, etc, can be obtained.

In order to find new structures and new functions in helical polymers, this work addressed the synthesis of a novel family of materials denominated poly(diphenylacetylene)s. These polymers are a special class of conjugated polymers that present the abilities of fluorescence emission and a high thermal stability.

In this work, we analyze the chiroptical properties of the synthetized polymers and how the addition of different metals can modify them. Also, fluorescent chiral nanostructures are