Chiral Molecular Conductors – ChiraMolCo

Chirality is one of the most important attributes of molecules and this concept has inspired major advances in physics, in chemistry and in the life sciences. The controlled preparation of chiral functional structures is a contemporary challenge for materials science because of the interesting properties that can arise from the resulting assemblies. The influence of chirality on the physical properties, such as magnetism, fluorescence, or conductivity, of molecular materials constitutes a relatively recent challenge. This development is in line with the quest for multifunctional molecular materials, a trend of much current interest in materials science, aiming at combining in the solid state at least two physical properties.
In this respect, the synthesis of chiral tetrathiafulvalenes (TTF) and their use as precursors for chiral molecular conductors have been continuously developing in the last decade, one of the main interests being the detection of the electrical magnetochiral anisotropy effect.
The project ChiraMolCo has as objectives the investigation of the electrical magneto-chiral anisotropy of three novel families of chiral organic conductors based on chiral TTFs and metal dithiolene complexes, and combinations of both, and the discovery of new magneto-chiral effects. The main interest of this cutting-edge research lies in the field of new materials with unconventional properties and novel phenomena for electronic and spintronic applications.