Chiral assembly and asymmetric synthesis are critically important for the generation of chiral metal clusters with chiroptical activities. Here, a racemic mixture of [K(CH3 OH)2 (18-crown-6)]+ [Cu5 (St Bu)6 ]- (1⋅CH3 OH) in the chiral space group was prepared, in which the chiral red-emissive anionic [Cu5 (St Bu)6 ]- cluster was arranged along a twofold screw axis. Interestingly, the release of the coordinated CH3 OH of the cationic units turned the chiral 1⋅CH3 OH crystal into a mesomeric crystal [K(18-crown-6)]+ [Cu5 (St Bu)6 ]- (1), which has a centrosymmetric space group, by adding symmetry elements of glide and mirror planes through both disordered [Cu5 (St Bu)6 ]- units. The switchable chiral/achiral rearrangement of [Cu5 (St Bu)6 ]- clusters along with the capture/release of CH3 OH were concomitant with an intense increase/decrease in luminescence. We also used cationic chiral amino alcohols to induce the chiral assembly of a pair of enantiomers, [d/l-valinol(18-crown-6)]+ [Cu5 (St Bu)6 ]- (d/l-Cu5V ), which display impressive circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) in contrast to the CPL-silent racemic mixture of 1⋅CH3 OH and mesomeric 1.
Keywords: chiral assembly; chirality; circularly polarized luminescence; metal clusters; structural transformation.
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