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. 2025 Oct 3:e202518587.
doi: 10.1002/anie.202518587. Online ahead of print.

Tubular All-Benzene Nanocarbon with Evolving Excited-State Chirality

Gaolei Li #  1 , Xueli Wang #  2 , Liang-Liang Mao #  1 , Jia-Nan Gao  1 , Xueliang Shi  3 , Hongwei Li  4 , Zi-Tong Li  1 , Zi-Ye Huo  1 , Yiming Chen  1 , Hai-Bo Yang  3 , Jinquan Chen  2 , Chen-Ho Tung  1 , Li-Zhu Wu  1 , Huan Cong  1
Affiliations

Tubular All-Benzene Nanocarbon with Evolving Excited-State Chirality

Gaolei Li et al. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. .

Abstract

Molecular nanocarbons with precisely defined conjugated scaffolds can provide an ideal platform for investigating mechanistic insights into photophysical properties. Here, we report the synthesis and time-resolved spectroscopic characterization of two isomeric tubular all-benzene nanocarbon (TANC) molecules, named meso- and chiral-TANC, respectively. Structurally, they feature triple covalent linkages, with different connectivity, between coaxially stacked cycloparaphenylene units. While meso-TANC maintains conformational rigidity, chiral-TANC shows photo-induced dynamic helicity. Femtosecond transient absorption (TA) and time-resolved circularly polarized luminescence (TRCPL) spectroscopy demonstrate that chiral-TANC undergoes ultrafast relaxation accompanied by untwisting motions within 8 ps upon photoexcitation, establishing the direct correlation between photo-induced conformational evolution and chiroptical dynamics in heteroatom-free, fully conjugated molecules.

Keywords: All‐benzene scaffold; Circularly polarized luminescence; Excited‐state chirality; Time‐resolved spectroscopy; Tubular nanocarbons.

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