Fluorescent Origin and Chiral Nature of Möbius Carbon Nanobelts

Abstract

In this paper, we theoretically explore the physical mechanism of the fluorescent origin and chiral nature of Möbius carbon nanobelts. The electron–hole recombination is promoted by the electron–hole aggregation on the twisted moiety in the relaxation process of the excited state, which results in strong fluorescence. The chiral nature of Möbius carbon nanobelts is revealed by the interaction between the transition electric and the magnetic dipole moments, which causes the observed Cotton effects in the ECD spectra. Möbius strip molecules are inherently chiral as a result of their topology (i.e., generation of two non-superimposable mirror images due to topological restrictions in the conformational space). Our work promotes a deeper understanding of the relationship between the geometry and optical properties of Möbius strip materials at the nanoscale.