Ligand-induced twisting of nanoplatelets and their self-assembly into chiral ribbons

The emergence of chirality is a central issue in chemistry, materials science, and biology. In nanoparticle assemblies, chirality has been shown to arise through a few different processes, but chiral organizations composed of plate-like nanoparticles, a class of material under scrutiny due to their wide applicative potential, have not yet been reported. We show that ribbons of stacked board-shaped cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanoplatelets (NPLs) twist upon the addition of oleic acid ligand, leading to chiral ribbons that reach several micrometers in length and display a well-defined pitch of ~400 nm. We demonstrate that the chirality originates from surface strain caused by the ligand because isolated NPLs in dilute solution undergo a transition from a flat to a twisted shape as the ligand coverage increases. When the platelets are closely stacked within ribbons, the individual twist propagates over the whole ribbon length. These results show that a ligand-induced mechanical stress can strongly distort thin NPLs and that this stress can be expressed at a larger scale, paving the way to stress engineering in assemblies of nanocrystals. Such a structural change resulting from a simple external stimulus could have broad implications for the design of sensors and other responsive materials.