Detecting chiral/helical
interactions among noncharged molecules
and polymers is difficult due to their unlimited intra- and intermolecular
rotational freedom. To clarify the chirality and/or helicity transfer
from a chiral polymer to noncharged achiral molecules, we chose stiff
cellulose triacetate (CTA) and cellulose acetate butyrate (CABu) as
nonchromophoric helical/chiral polymers. Here, we highlighted stiff
9,9-dialkylfluorene oligomers and polymers (repeating number n = 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 47, 201) as achiral chromophoric luminophores.
These fluorenes revealed clear circularly polarized luminescence (CPL)
and bisignate circular dichroism (CD) signals when embedded into CTA
and CABu films. In the ground state, when n = 1–7,
CTA and CABu commonly induced (+)-CD signals, whereas when n ≥ 47, they induced (+)- and (−)-CD signs,
respectively. In the photoexcited state, when n ≥
3, CTA and CABu induced (+)- and (−)-CPL signs, respectively.
Upon comparing the ground and photoexcited states, when n = 2–7, CABu induced (+)-CD and (−)-CPL signs, whereas
when n ≥ 3, CTA induced the same (+)-CD and
(+)-CPL signs. A conflict between the d-glucose chirality
and main-chain helicity was assumed to be responsible for these anomalies
because CTA and CABu, despite being common frameworks of β(1→4)-linked d-glucose residues, prefer left- and right-handed helicities,
respectively. Molecular mechanics/molecular dynamics simulations suggested
intermolecular C–H/OC interactions between H–C
(due to the methylene group of the dioctylfluorenes) and OC
(due to the acetyl group attached to the d-glucose of CTA).
This simulation was confirmed by the first detection of a clear cross-peak
at 13CO (δC = 170.6 ppm, CTA)
and the finding CH2 protons (δH = 2.55
ppm, fluorene with n = 201) represented the shortest
C–1H/O13C distance according
to the phase-modulated Lee–Goldburg homonuclear decoupling
of solid-state 1H–13C HETCOR NMR spectroscopy.
Moreover, the first photoinduced change in the real-time CPL/PL amplitude
measurement of optically active fluorenes in CTA revealed that the
stability of the chiroptical state increases as n increases and remains unchanged when n ≥
47.