Circularly polarized luminescence from semiconductor quantum rods templated by self-assembled cellulose nanocrystals

Fluorescent semiconductor quantum nanocrystals have received much attention due to their high brightness and color purity. Fabrication of semiconductor quantum nanocrystals with optical activity is of particular interest recently due to the potential applications in the fields of chemistry, pharmacology, biology and physics. Several approaches have been developed to induce circular dichroism and circularly polarized luminescence of semiconductor quantum nanocrystals, but only resulted in very weak signals. Herein, we demonstrate a circularly polarized luminescent solid film by doping CdSe/CdS quantum rods into the self-assembled left-handed helical structure of the earth-abundant and renewable cellulose nanocrystals. The degree of circularly polarized luminescence can be tuned by adjusting the photonic band gap of the helical structure relative to the photoluminescent band. A significant right-handed circularly polarized luminescence has been demonstrated, offering an easy and powerful platform to produce circularly polarized luminescence of semiconductor quantum materials.