Transferring axial molecular chirality through a sequence of on-surface reactions

This article is part of the themed collection: 2020 Chemical Science HOT Article Collection.Fine management of chiral processes on solid surfaces has progressed over the years, yet still faces the need for the controlled and selective production of advanced chiral materials. Here, we report on the use of enantiomerically enriched molecular building blocks to demonstrate the transmission of their intrinsic chirality along a sequence of on-surface reactions. Triggered by thermal annealing, the on-surface reactions induced in this experiment involve firstly the coupling of the chiral reactants into chiral polymers and subsequently their transformation into planar prochiral graphene nanoribbons. Our study reveals that the axial chirality of the reactant is not only transferred to the polymers, but also to the planar chirality of the graphene nanoribbon end products. Such chirality transfer consequently allows, starting from adequate enantioenriched reactants, for the controlled production of chiral and prochiral organic nanoarchitectures with pre-defined handedness.We acknowledge funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 635919 (“SURFINK”) and 863098 (“SPRING”)), from the Spanish MINECO (Grant No. MAT2016-78293-C6), Xunta de Galicia (Centro singular de investigación de Galicia, accreditation 2016–2019, ED431G/09), and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER).Peer reviewe