VCD of Inorganic Supramolecular Chirality

This chapter is focused on VCD of chiral inorganic materials. Materials are prepared from exfoliated inorganic layers or silanol or siloxanes in the presence of chiral organic templates. Chirality is transferred from organic templates to inorganic skeletons during the process of lamination or polymerization. Products have no UV–vis electronic absorption after calcination. No asymmetric carbon, nitrogen and sulfur atoms are included. VCD aims at establishing the atomic organization of a chiral structure around Si(IV), Al(III), Zn(II) and Mg(II) ions. Except for a few examples, however, only broad peaks are obtained in the region of 1100–1200 cm−1. They are assigned to the stretching vibrations of –M–O– (M = Si, Al and Zn) networks. It is difficult to deduce any detailed structural information from the spectra alone. In some rare cases, multiple VCD peaks were obtained, which enabled to analyze the atomic arrangements around metal ions.