Chiral-Linkage-Induced Hierarchical Ordering of Colloidal Achiral Nanotubes in their Thixotropic Gel.

Macroscopic continuous hierarchical ordering of achiral nanotube "imogolite" was achieved by thixotropic gelation of imogolite with chiral hydroxy acid and their flow-orienting/subsequent standing for uniaxial alignments of imogolite. The chirality change of the hydroxy acids resulted in an inversion of the helical ordering. The study presented here first exhibits the millimeter-scale supramolecular chirality induced by angstrom-scale molecular handedness in the architecture of nanotubes.