Enantioselective synthesis of helical polydiacetylene by application of linearly polarized light and magnetic field

Magnetic optical activity, which can occur in all media and is induced by longitudinal magnetic field, causes the difference in absorption coefficients of left and right circularly polarized light and has the potential for magnetically induced enantioselectivity in chemical reactions. Compared with the well-established technique with circularly polarized light, there are few reports on the production of helical conjugated polymers in a photochemical reaction based on above magnetochiral anisotropy mechanism. Herein, we demonstrate experimentally that the enantioselective polymerization of diacetylene derivative can be achieved in the liquid crystal phase by application of linearly polarized light under a parallel or antiparallel magnetic field. The screw direction of predominant helical polydiacetylene chain can be rigorously controlled with the relative orientation of linearly polarized light and the magnetic field. Moreover, the prepared helical polydiacetylene assemblies can serve as a direct visual probe for the enantioselective recognition of D- or L-lysine.