Structural Chirality from Short-Range Order in Heteroanionic Materials
Structural chirality can be forced by ordering two anion species rather than atomic displacements. The study proves that for ReO3-type materials, satisfying both a cis coordination rule and a period-three anion chain ordering guarantees a chiral structure. This establishes configurational ordering as a chemically viable method to create new classes of chiral functional materials, with NbO2F serving as the key example.