SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3926-0
Chirality is a fundamental determinant of molecular recognition and biological function, yet its integration into inorganic clusters remains a formidable challenge. Polyoxometalates (POMs), characterized by atomic precision, structural tunability, and versatile redox properties, provide an exceptional platform for investigating chirality at the interface of inorganic chemistry and biomedicine. Over the past two decades, substantial progress has been made in constructing chiral POM-based materials through diverse strategies, including chirality induction by external environments, intrinsic structural chirality, spontaneous symmetry breaking, and the design of self-assembled supramolecular architectures. The distinctive combination of redox activity, stability, and chirality in these systems has unlocked new avenues for biomedical applications, spanning antibacterial and anticancer therapies to potential interventions in neurodegenerative disorders. This review comprehensively overviews recent advances in the synthesis and biomedical applications of chiral POM-based materials, while outlining key challenges and opportunities that will guide future research in this emerging field.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3928-4
Circularly polarized afterglow (CPA) materials provide an advanced optical signature to light emission, offering great potential for advanced photonic technologies. However, practical implementation remains challenging due to the lack of satisfactory performance, that is, high luminescence dissymmetry factor (g_CPA), long visualization time, and good processability. Here, we develop processable, full-color CPA materials composed of cholesteric liquid crystal polymers (CLCPs) and inorganic phosphors embedded in polymers, achieving a high g_CPA value of up to 0.74 and a long visualization time of 7 min. The materials are constructed with a bilayer structure comprising CLCPs and inorganic luminophors such as Y2O2S:Eu,Mg,Ti, SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy, and Sr2MgSi2O7:Eu. The CLCPs are synthesized from polymerizable liquid crystal monomer RM257, chiral dopants R/S5011, dipropylamine, photoinitiator Irgacure 651, cross-linker PETMP, and chain extender. The resulting materials exhibit excellent circularly polarized optics, enabling the implementation of circular polarization differential imaging (CPDI), where images are generated by subtracting two images captured through left- and right-handed circularly polarized filters. This work demonstrates the unique application of CPA in imaging, opening a new pathway for the use of purely inorganic solid-state luminophors in chiral functional materials.