Chiral metal surfaces and nanoparticles

Abstract

The surface of metals can exhibit intrinsic chiral structure. Furthermore, chirality can be bestowed onto achiral metal surfaces by adsorption of chiral molecules. Such chiral metal surfaces are promising as heterogeneous enantioselective catalysts and may furthermore be used for the separation and detection of enantiomers. Similarly, metal nanoparticles can be chiral, which is reflected by their optical activity in metal-based electronic transitions. The transfer of chirality from adsorbate to the metal surface depends on the structure of the former, which is however difficult to elucidate. It is shown that vibrational circular dichroism can be used to determine the structure of a chiral adsorbed molecule and the way it interacts with the metal.