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Materials chemistry

Thin films with a hidden twist

Nature volume 468, pages 387–388 (2010)Cite this article

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Many naturally occurring substances have a 'handedness' that enables them to interact highly specifically with matter or light. The helical features responsible for this can now be replicated in solid, porous films. See Letter p.422

Porous silica can be made to replicate the helical arrangement of nanocrystalline cellulose derived from wood pulp if, as Shopsowitz et al.1 demonstrate on page 422 of this issue, the silica is formed around a cellulose scaffold at a specific pH. Using a simple, scalable method, the researchers thus obtain self-supporting silica films that have nanometre-sized channels, high surface areas and a twisting, rod-like substructure. The films exhibit iridescent colours similar to those of the original cellulose, and the colours can be tuned across the spectrum by modifying the synthetic conditions. These films are promising new materials for applications as varied as chemical sensors, smart windows and separating molecules that differ only in terms of their 'handedness'.

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Figure 1: Capturing the chiral structure of liquid crystals in a solid film.

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  1. Andreas Stein is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA. a-stein@umn.edu,

    Andreas Stein

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  1. Andreas Stein
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Stein, A. Thin films with a hidden twist. Nature 468, 387–388 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/468387a

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