Chiral metal oxide nanostructures have received tremendous
attention
in nanotechnological applications owing to their intriguing chiroptical
and magnetic properties. Current synthetic methods mostly rely on
the use of amino acids or peptides as chiral inducers. Here, we report
a general approach to fabricate chiral metal oxide nanostructures
with tunable magneto-chiral effects, using block copolymer (BCP) inverse
micelle and R/S-mandelic acid (MA). Diverse chiral
metal oxide nanostructures are prepared by the selective incorporation
of precursors within micellar cores followed by the oxidation process,
exhibiting intense chiroptical properties with a g-factor up to 7.0
× 10–3 in the visible–NIR range for
the Cr2O3 nanoparticle multilayer. The BCP inverse
micelle is found to inhibit the racemization of MA, allowing MA to
act as a chiral dopant that imparts chirality to nanostructures via hierarchical chirality transfer. Notably, for paramagnetic
nanostructures, magneto-chiroptical modulation is realized by regulating
the direction of the external magnetic field. This BCP-driven approach
can be extended to the mass production of chiral nanostructures with
tunable architectures and optical activities, which may provide insights
into the development of chiroptical functional materials.