The Chirality@The Nanoscale conference gathers scientists interested by chirality in its broadest sense, with a particular focus on materials and chirality related physical properties, since 2007 (Sitges 2007, Liverpool 2011, Leuven 2015, Ascona 2019, Angers 2023,….).

Chirality is central to the building blocks of life: amino acids and sugars. Such chiral molecules exist in two mirror-image forms, like left and right hands. Already Louis Pasteur discovered that a crystalline deposit found in wine barrels during fermentation consisted of equal amounts of left- and right-handed crystals. Chiral molecules can form either racemic (heterochiral) crystals, which contain equal numbers of left- and right-handed molecules in the same crystal, or - like in Pasteur's case - conglomerates of separate left- or right- handed (homochiral) crystals. Even today, more than 150 years after Pasteur's discovery, it is not understood why chiral compounds sometimes crystallize into conglomerates or into racemic crystals. In order to better understand the complex phenomenon of stereorecognition among chiral molecules, new physical approaches based on modern techniques are applied that go beyond classical chemistry. Moreover, new materials systems are created nowadays that show novel or enhanced physical phenomena based on chirality, like electron spin filtering, magnetochiral anisotropy, molecular machines, spin spirals in magnetic materials of transport phenomena, circularly polarized luminescence.

The aim of this highly interdisciplinary conference is to bring together researchers from different fields dealing with molecular chirality and chiral phenomena in the physical sciences.

There will be invited expert lectures covering recent advances in the field of chirality. Contributed papers providing the main forum for presentation of new work and for discussion of recent progress will be presented either as oral contribution or in poster sessions. The format is similar to that of Gordon Conferences with ample time for discussions. The number of participants is kept around 100 in order to guarantee active communication between all attendees.

We hope to see you in Angers!

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