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. 2017 Feb 2;8:14312. doi: 10.1038/ncomms14312

Figure 2. Two-step synthesis for controlling crystallographic and geometric handedness.

Figure 2

(a) Schematic of the growth process based on epitaxial principle with involvement of chiral molecule to tailor the chirality of morphology. (b,c) Large-scale TEM image of as-synthesized α-HgS nanostructures with (+)C-P and (+)C-M nanostructures by following synthetic route in a, respectively. Scale bar, 200 nm. (d,e) Typical TEM images of prevailing individual nanostructures from b and c, respectively. Blue dashed curves are added to guide the eyes for different twisting orientation in a nanostructure. Scale bar, 20 nm. (f) High-resolution TEM image of selected yellow area in d. Helical atomic arrangement along crystallographic c axis can be unambiguously identified, as illustrated in Fig. 1b. Scale bar, 5 nm. (g) Better resolution to reveal feature of helical atomic arrangement. Scale bar, 2 nm. (h) Fourier transform of TEM image, confirming assignment of crystallographic axis. (i–n) TEM images of (+)C-M (i–k) and (+)C-P (l–n) α-HgS nanostructures with different size. Blue dashed curve is added to guide the eyes for different twisting orientation in a nanostructure. Scale bar, 100 nm.