Abstract: Chiral surfaces, obtained through self-assembling of chiral molecules on achiral metallic surfaces, represent a relevant subject for technologically important issues in many fields, like surface science, molecular electronics, biomaterials, nanomedicine and quantum information processing. The interest in two-dimensional (2D) chiral surface assemblies is also motivated by the aim to identify the role that such surfaces play in heterogeneous enantioselective catalytic activity, by the possibility of artificially handling homochirality.
In this talk I will review some of the progresses made in the last few years in the study of the formation of chiral surfaces. I will discuss in particular on the different levels of molecular chirality expression at surfaces, ranging from local chiral motifs by adsorption events (i.e. local chirality) to extended chiral domains (i.e. global chirality) and how this chiral transfer takes place from isolated molecules to nucleation clusters and saturation coverage (from local to global chirality). Moreover, I’ll show the capabilities of a racemic mixture of chiral molecules on surface to produce both mirror phases with equal probability and how the 2D supramolecular organization can be altered by introducing small imbalances in enantiomeric ratios.