Ternary Modular Molecular Co-Assembly with Flexibly Tailored Chiroptical Properties

Rational design of chiroptical active materials from multi-component co-assembly remains great challenges ascribed to the spontaneous pathway competition and complexity. In this work we report a modularized, ternary component co-assembly system constituted by two N-terminated aromatic glutamic amino acids and an imidazole-based binder, which demonstrated mutual binding behaviors via aromatic interaction and complementary H-bonds that allow for flexible manipulation over the chiroptical activities including circular polarized light absorbance and luminescence. Through modular combination, we synthesized up to six self-assembled aggregates with distinct chiroptical activities, showing chirality emergence, transfer, amplification and inversion behaviors. The modular molecular self-assembly protocol provides an alternative route to noncovalently synthesis chiroptical active materials with high throughput efficacy.