Regioselective Magneto-optical Heteronanorods Enabling Chiroptical Activity

Synthesis of colloidal heterostructures with rational design and controllable precision represents a promising strategy for achieving novel properties and applications. Most recently, Zhuang et al. reported a "double-buffer-layer engineering" concept that was capable of regioselectively growing magnetic Fe₃O₄ nanodomains only at single ends of semiconductor Zn_xCd_1-xS(0 ≤ x ≤ 1) nanorods. The resulting composite nanostructures exhibited chiroptical activity due to the local magnetic fields introduced by regiospecific magnetic nanodomains, highlighting the promise of controlled colloidal chemistry in synthesizing chiroptical nanostructures in the absence of chiral molecules and helical geometries. The work has been published online in Nature Nanotechnology on January 20, 2020.