Multi‐stimuli responsive cellulose nanocrystal‐based circularly polarized luminescence materials: Advances, regulation strategies and perspectives
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials represent a pivotal class of chiral photonic platforms with broad application potential in information security, optoelectronics, and biomedicine. As renewable biomass‐derived chiral building blocks, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) spontaneously self‐assemble into long‐range ordered chiral nematic superstructures with intrinsic chirality and favorable biocompatibility, constituting a promising green scaffold for constructing high‐performance CPL materials. This review provides a systematic overview of CNC‐based CPL materials, classifying state‐of‐the‐art systems by luminescent building blocks including organic dyes, quantum dots, metal nanoclusters, lanthanide complexes, perovskite nanocrystals, and aggregation‐induced emission luminogens, and elaborating their co‐assembly mechanisms with CNC matrices and chiroptical properties. Four regulation strategies—helical pitch tuning, interfacial chiral transfer, helical stacking, and multilayer design—spanning from the molecular to the device level are discussed in detail to elucidate multi‐scale structure–property relationships. The dynamic stimulus‐responsive behaviors of these materials under humidity, tensile strain, and pressure are further analyzed, and their representative applications in information encryption, label‐free biomedical diagnostics, wearable ion sensing, and chiral induction for asymmetric photopolymerization are highlighted. Finally, critical challenges impeding practical translation are identified, and promising future research directions are proposed to guide the rational design of high‐performance sustainable chiral photonic materials and accelerate their real‐world deployment.
Source: Responsive materials
DOI: 10.1002/rpm2.70093
Language: English
Subfield: Biomaterials
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225801749