An optically resolvable and thermally chiral‐switchable device for circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) is first constructed using a light‐emitting conjugated polymer film and a double‐layered chiral nematic liquid crystal (N*‐LC) cell. The double‐layered N*‐LC cell with opposite handedness at each layer is fabricated by adding each of two types of N*‐LCs into each of the cells, and the N*‐LCs consist of nematic LCs and chiral dopants with opposite chirality and different mole concentrations. The selective reflection band due to the N*‐LC is thermally shifted so that the band wavelength is close to the luminescence band of the racemic conjugated polymer, such as disubstituted polyacetylene (diPA), yielding CPL with opposite handedness and high dissymmetry factor values (|glum|) of 1.1–1.6 at low and high temperatures. The double‐layered N*‐LC cell bearing the temperature‐controlled selective reflection is useful for generating CPLs from racemic fluorescent materials and for allowing thermal chirality‐switching in CPLs, which present new possibilities for optoelectronic and photochemical applications.

Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) was observed in pyrene zipper arrays helically arranged on an RNA duplex. Hybridization of complementary RNA strands having multiple (two to five) 2'-O-pyrenylmethyl modified nucleosides affords an RNA duplex with normal thermal stability. The pyrene fluorophores are assembled like a zipper in a well-defined helical manner along the axis of RNA duplex, which, upon 350 nm UV illumination, resulted in CPL emission with pyrene excimer formation. CPL (glum ) levels observed for the pyrene arrays in dilute aqueous solution were +2×10(-2) -+3.5×10(-2) , which are comparable with |glum | for chiral organic molecules and related systems. The positive CPL signals are consistent with a right-handed helical structure. Temperature dependence on CPL emission indicates that the stable rigid RNA structure is responsible for the strong CPL signals. The single pyrene-modified RNA duplex did not show any CPL signal.

In this report, we describe the circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) of the RNA duplexes having one to four 2'-O-pyrene modified uridines (Upy) and the DNA duplexes having two, four, and six pyrene modified non-nucleosidic linkers (Py). Both the pyrene π-stack arrays formed on the RNA and DNA double helical structures exhibited pyrene excimer fluorescence. In the pyrene-modified RNA systems, the RNA duplex having four Upys gives CPL emission with g value of <0.01 at 480 nm. The structure of pyrene stacks on the RNA duplex may be rigidly regulated with increase in the Upy domains, which resulted in the CPL emission. In the DNA systems, the pyrene-modified duplexes containing two and four Pys exhibited CPL emission with g values of <0.001 at 505 nm. The pyrene π-stack arrays presented here show CPL emission. However, the g values are relatively small when compared with our previous system consisting of the pyrene-zipper arrays on RNA.