Abstract Chiral organic materials show great promise in optoelectronics, sensing and catalysis. Among those, macrocycles are of great interest due to their preorganisation and potential amplification of chiroptical properties. Understanding the effects of different sources of chirality on the resulting chiroptical properties of these molecules is key to unlocking tailored chiral materials. To this end, we have synthesised a family of bis-perylene diimide-based macrocycles containing multiple sources of chirality, specifically point chirality in the linker, helical chirality in the perylene diimide and supramolecular chirality in the macrocyclic dimer. We found a dominant effect from the helical chirality of the perylene diimide on the chiroptical properties, including the induction of chirality in an achiral guest molecule, which opens up new possibilities for hybrid chiroptical materials.
Hartmann et al. (Fri,) studied this question.