Homochiral Chemistry Strategy to Trigger Second-Harmonic Generation and Dual Dielectric Switches

Switchablematerials have attracted enormous interest due to theirpromising applications in important fields such as sensing, electroniccomponents, and information storage. Nevertheless, obtaining multifunctionalswitching materials is still a problem worth investigating. Herein,by incorporating (Rac-, L-, D-2-amino-1-propanol) as the templating cation, we haveobtained (Rac-, L-, D-HTMPA)CdCl3 (HTMPA = 1-hydroxy-N, N, N-trimethyl-2-propanaminium). We haveadopted a chiral chemistry strategy that causes (Rac-HTMPA)CdCl3 in the central symmetric space to crystallizein the chiral space group. Based on the modulation of the homochiralstrategy, (L-, D-HTMPA)CdCl3 shows a dual phasic transition at 269 and 326 K and a switchablesecond-harmonic generation response. In addition, (L-, D-HTMPA)CdCl3 is chiral switchablematerial to exhibit stable dual dielectric and second-harmonic generation(SHG) switches. This work provides an approach to exploring multifunctionalchiral switchable materials. Theracemic compound has a single phase transition at 330K. By introducing chirality, the dual phase transition induced at269 and 326 K, the noncentrosymmetric structure triggers the SHG signalresponse. This is important for further exploration of the effectof homochiral chemical strategies on multifunctional molecular switchingmaterials.