Optical Vortex‐Induced Chiral Nanotubes of Tetra(4‐sulfonatophenyl)porphyrin for Enantioselective Catalysis of Dihydroxy Phenylalanine

Achieving symmetry breaking and controlling the initial chirality of molecular assemblies are crucial for understanding the origin of chirality in nature. However, weak chiral interactions among small organic precursors render this process inherently difficult to manipulate. Herein, we report a light-driven chiral assembly of tetra(4-sulfonatophenyl) porphyrin (TPPS) into enantiomerically enriched nanotubes using optical vortices (OVs), enabling chiral catalysis of D/L-dihydroxy phenylalanine successfully. The resulting TPPS nanotubes comprise plus (P)- and minus (M)-type aggregates, each exhibiting a distinct circular dichroism signal at 490 nm that correlates with the use of a positive or negative OV topological charge ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:semantics><mml:mi>ℓ</mml:mi> <mml:annotation>$\ell$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> ). Mechanistic investigations show that OVs trap TPPS monomers bearing the opposite <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:semantics><mml:mi>ℓ</mml:mi> <mml:annotation>$\ell$</mml:annotation></mml:semantics> </mml:math> value, thereby inducing rotation and distortion of nascent aggregates through optical forces and hydrodynamic coupling. Our findings establish a new paradigm for light-controlled chiral assembly via weak interactions and offer insight into supramolecular symmetry breaking for chiral catalysis.