Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen (The Netherlands). m.a.stohr@rug.nl.
Abstract:
Birds of a feather flock together: STM and DFT studies provide the first example of spontaneous chiral resolution of a helicene on a surface. Racemic 6,13-dicyano[7]helicene forms fully segregated domains of pure enantiomers (2D conglomerate) on Cu(111). The propensity of the system to optimize intermolecular CN???HC(Ar) hydrogen bonding and CN???CN dipolar interactions translates into chiral recognition with preferential assembly of homochiral molecules.