AI Insight
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter and the University of Oxford have discovered that applying mechanical strain to non-chiral crystals can induce chirality, making them either left- or right-handed on demand. This finding extends the principle of using mechanical strain to modify material properties, similar to how it generates electrical polarization in piezoelectric materials or magnetization in piezomagnetic materials. The discovery enables controlled manipulation of chirality in materials that normally lack this property.
Why it matters
This breakthrough provides a new method to control chirality in materials without requiring inherently chiral structures, which could enable the development of switchable chiral devices and materials with tunable electronic properties. The ability to induce and control chirality on demand has potential applications in optoelectronics, quantum materials, and technologies that exploit chiral-dependent phenomena.
Understand the Science
Mechanical strain is one of the most common tools used to tailor the properties of materials. In piezoelectric materials, stretching or compressing a crystal generates an electrical polarization. In piezomagnetic materials, it induces magnetization. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and the University of Oxford have now discovered that mechanical strain also induces chirality in non-chiral crystals, opening a new direction to control this property on demand and potentially imprint chiral electronic properties. This work has just been published in Nature.
Source: Strain turns non-chiral crystals left- or right-handed on demand