Optical activity in crystals

For intrinsically chiral species that are inert enough to be resolved conventionally, the measurement of natural optical activity in crystals has the same advantages as single crystal absorption measurements. In addition, however, it also affords the opportunity to determine rotational strengths of species which do not exhibit optical activity in solution. There are two classes of such materials 1) intrinsically achiral chromophores which crystallize in enantiomorphous space groups, and 2) intrinsically chiral but labile chromophores which spontaneously resolve on crystallization. 

Optical activity in crystals is not only the effect of a single molecule but contains also the effects of a large array of similar entities. This is why the crystal... 

Weissbuch, L, Addadi, L., Berkovitch-Yellin, Z., et al. (1984). Spontaneous generation and amplification of optical activity in amino acids by enantioselective occlusion into centrosymmetric crystals of glycine. Nature, 310, 161. ... 

JFor a discussion of the conditions for optical activity in liquids and crystals, see O Loane Chem. Rev. 1980, 80. 41-61. For a discussion of chirality as applied to molecules, see Quack Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1989,28. 571-586 [Angetv. Chem. 101, 588-604],... 

Chirality in Crystals. When chiral molecules form crystals the space group symmetry must conform with the chirality of the molecules. In the case of racemic mixtures there are two possibilities. By far the commonest is that the racemic mixture persists in each crystal, where there are then pairs of opposite enantiomorphs related by inversion centers or mirror planes. In rare cases, spontaneous resolution occurs and each crystal contains only R or only S molecules. In that event or, obviously, when a resolved optically active compound crystallizes, the space group must be one that has no rotoinversion axis. According to our earlier discussion (page 34) the chiral molecule cannot itself reside on such an axis. Neither can it reside elsewhere in the unit cell unless its enantiomorph is also present. 

Araoka F, Sugiyama G, Ishikawa K, Takezoe H (2011) Electric-field controllable optical activity in the nano-segregated system composed of rod- and bent-core liquid crystals. Opt Mater Exp 1 27-35... 

A related phenomenon can also occur when the crystal lattice packing is chiral. This intrinsic handedness can result in formation of a 1 1 mixture of enantiomeric crystals. In this case, although there has been self-resolution into (+)- and (—)-crystals, both molecular enantiomers remain unseparated in each crystal. The fundamental distinction is that a conglomerate single crystal contains only one molecular enantiomer and therefore would be optically active in solution, while, for the latter, a single crystal contains both molecular enantiomers and its solution would be optically inactive. 

It was Pasteur, in the middle of the 19th century, who first recognized the breaking of chiral symmetry in life. By crystallizing optically inactive sodium anmonium racemates, he separated two enantiomers of sodium ammonium tartrates, with opposite optical activities, by means of their asymmetric crystalline shapes [2], Since the activity was observed even in solution, it was concluded that optical activity is due to the molecular asymmetry or chirality, not due to the crystalline symmetry. Because two enantiomers with different chiralities are identical in every chemical and physical property except for optical activity, in 1860 Pasteur stated that artificial products have no molecular asymmetry and continued that the molecular asymmetry of natural organic products establishes the only well-marked line of demarcation that can at present be drawn between the chemistry of dead matter and the chemistry... 

Just as chiral induction can be realised in discotic liquid crystals, it can also be realised in assemblies of disc-like molecules or disc-like aggregates. As far as molecules are concerned, C3-symmetrical trisamides (Fig. 15), which actually exhibit discotic liquid crystalline phases, also form chiral columnar stacks through it-it interactions when dissolved in apolar solvents, which are depicted schematically in Fig. 15 [121]. An achiral compound of this type (15) exhibits no optical activity in dodecane, but when the compound is dissolved in the chiral CR)-(-)-2,6-dimelhyloctanc significant Cotton effects (only slightly less intense than those observed in a chiral derivative) are detected. The chiral disc-like trisamide 16 can also be used as a dopant at concentrations as low as 2.5% to induce supramolecular chirality in the stacks of achiral compound. In this case, the presence of the additional hydrogen... 

Examples for the many cases where the observed development of optical activity in a reaction could not be reproduced are the photoaddition of H2O2 to diethylfumarate [13] or the thermal decarboxylation of 2-phenyl-2-carboxylbu-tyric acid in cholesteric liquid crystals [14]. On the other hand, spurious optically active impurities may, especially in autocatalytic systems, cause considerable asymmetry effects. This exceptional case was demonstrated by Singleton and Vo... 

The measured crystal optical activity, in general, can be either of molecular origin or due to the chiral helical arrangement of chiral or achiral molecules in the crystal, or both. The two factors are difficult to separate. Kobayashi defined a chirality factor r = (pc — ps)/pc = 1 — pslpc, where pc is the rotatory power per molecule of a randomly oriented crystal aggregate derived from the gyration tensors determined by HAUP, and ps that in solution [51]. It is a measure of the 4 crystal lattice structural contribution to the optical activity and represents the severity of the crystal lattice structural contribution to the optical activity, and represents the severity of the restriction of the freedom of molecular orientation by forming a crystal lattice. Quartz is a typical example of r = 1, as it does not contain chiral molecules or ions and its optical activity vanishes in random orientation (ps = 0). 

These intramolecular cyclization reactions in the solid state were also examined with other thioesters 51d g to give the corresponding phthalides 52d-g, but as racemates. The failure of generation of optical activity in the products was well compatible with their centrosymmetric crystal systems such as Pljc and Pi. 

Optical activity in solution, unlike the same effect in crystals, is an isotropic effect. This interaction between a polarized photon and a molecule therefore implicates a chiral factor that is independent of direction, such as the molecular wave function, and in particular, its complex phase. It is a non-classical factor and hence cannot be attributed directly to a classical three-dimensional structure. In a crystal where optical activity arises from three-dimensional... 

For molecules dissolved in a nematic thermotropic liquid-crystal, the direct coupling constants can be determined and from these the molecular geometry can be calculated. If the satellites are determined, not only the proton structure but the carbon skeleton of the molecule can be established. Oxirane has been measured in two laboratories. It proved possible to determine the orientation, the sign of the indirect coupling constant, and the geometry. Enantiomers can readily be determined by recording measurements in optically active liquid-crystals as solvents. ... 

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