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Free keywords:
carbohydrates, self-assembly, microED, Chirality, structure-property correlation
Abstract:
Hierarchical carbohydrate architectures serve multiple roles in Nature. Hardly any correlations between the carbohydrate chemical structures and the material properties are available due to the lack of standards and suitable analytic techniques. Therefore, designer carbohydrate materials remain highly unexplored, as compared to peptides and nucleic acids. Here, a synthetic D-glucose disaccharide, DD , is chosen as model to explore carbohydrate materials. Microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED), optimized for oligosaccharides, revealed that DD assemble into highly crystalline left-handed helical fibers. The supramolecular architecture was correlated to the local crystal organization, allowing for the design of the enantiomeric right-handed fibers, based on the L-glucose disaccharide, LL , or flat lamellas, based on the racemic mixture. Tunable morphologies and mechanical properties suggest the potential of carbohydrate materials for nanotechnology applications.
