Diamond celebrates 10,000th paper – A breakthrough in chiral polymer thin films research

A recent paper in Nature Communications by an international team of collaborative researchers marks the 10,000th published as a result of innovative research at Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron. This study presents disruptive insights into chiral polymer films, which emit and absorb circularly polarised light, and offers the promise of achieving important technological advances, including high-performance displays, 3D imaging and quantum computing.

Chirality is a fundamental symmetry property of the universe. We see left-handed (LH) and right-handed (RH) mirror image pairs in everything from snails and small molecules to giant spiral galaxies. Light can also have chirality. As light is travelling, its internal electric field can rotate left or right creating LH or RH circular polarisation. The ability to control and manipulate this chiral, circularly-polarised light presents opportunities in next-generation optoelectronics (Figs 1a and 1b). However, the origin of the large chiroptical effects in polymer thin films (Figs 1c and 2) has remained elusive for almost three decades. In this study, a group of researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Nottingham, the University of Barcelona, the Diamond Light Source and the J.A. Woollam Company made use of Diamond's Synchrotron Radiation Circular Dichroism beamline (B23) and the Advanced Light Source in California.

Circular dichroism (CD) has a surprisingly long history. In the 19th century, French scientists observed that chiral molecules that do not superimpose to their mirror image, absorb left and right circularly polarised light differently depending on their configuration (like for L or D amino acids) and also the handedness of their structure. By the 1960s, scientists had realised that CD could be extremely helpful for the study of intricate material structures. Diamond's B23 beamline is dedicated to CD and generates a unique highly collimated monochromatic micro beam from vacuum ultraviolet (UV) to visible light.

For this study, the research team combined ultraviolet CD studies at Diamond with resonant carbon K-edge soft X-ray scattering measurements at the Advanced Light Source.

"Using a combination of spectroscopic methods and structural probes, the researchers questioned the validity of hitherto data interpretation of these polymer films,” explains Professor Giuliano Siligardi, Principal Beamline Scientist on Diamond's B23 beamline.

It was previously thought that the large chiroptical effects seen in these polymer films were caused by structural chirality like that seen in cholesteric liquid crystalline phase. However, this study shows that – under conditions relevant for device fabrication – they are caused instead by magneto-electric coupling that generates the natural optical activity of these polymers. 

All of the experiments were carried out under conditions relevant for real-world applications, with active layer thicknesses (<200 nm) that allow for the production of highly efficient electronics. 

“Our findings will inform the design of new polymers and device architectures where chemical structure and backbone conformation have been optimised to maximise magneto-electric coupling, allowing for strong chiroptical effects without the need for alignment and excessively thick active layers. The fabrication protocols optimised at B23 (annealing time, temperature (Fig. 2), etc.) have already resulted in the realisation of highly-efficient displays and photodetectors, and we are continuing to investigate these systems with the new Diamond B23 Mueller Matrix Polarimeter (MMP) functionality," concludes Dr Wade.

Professor Sir David Stuart, Director of Life Science at Diamond and Joint Head of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford was recently knighted in the New Year's Honours List. He adds: "As one of the most advanced scientific facilities in the world, Diamond strives to enable world-changing science every day. An important part of our mission is to aid in the publication of papers and results of the experiments done here into the public domain. This innovative 10,000th publication exemplifies the importance of international cooperation between scientists and facilities as well as the vital links between fundamental research, applied science and the technologies that move humanity forwards." 

To find out more about the B23 beamline, or to discuss potential applications, please contact Principal Beamline Scientist, Professor Giuliano Siligardi: giuliano.siligardi@diamond.ac.uk