Understanding Polymorphic Transitions in Chiral Materials

Chiral materials are known for hosting a range of interesting and useful physical phenomena, but there is still much to learn about boundaries between domains of different chirality. The novel potential practical applications of such domain walls remain largely understudied due to our insufficient knowledge about their formation conditions. To induce and control chiral domains, we propose to synthesize bulk materials with chiral/achiral structural phase transitions. Some of these transitions are mediated by phonon modes, which can lead to minimal atomic displacements. Such small atomic rearrangements could conserve the crystal orientation but not the homochirality, effectively creating enantiomorphic boundaries. To verify this hypothesis, we target polymorphs with various structural relationships, such as CsCuCl₃. Progress towards the synthesis and characterization will be presented.