Chirality is ubiquitous in nature. Chiral plasmonic nanoparticles, which possess chiral features on their surfaces, have recently attracted much attention. They exhibit much stronger chiroptical responses than chiral molecules because of their larger sizes and localized surface plasmon resonances. We have developed seed-mediated recipes for the synthesis of chiral Au nanoparticles. The growth with Au nanodisks gives chiral Au nanotriskelions and helicoid Au nanocrystals. The average scattering dissymmetry factors of the L- and D-nanotriskelions reach +0.57 and −0.49 at 650 nm, respectively. The growth with Au nanodecahedrons gives chiral Au nanorods. We have further demonstrated the use of the chiral Au nanoparticles to realize circularly polarized organic light-emitting devices (CP-OLEDs). Efficient CP-OLEDs are realized through the assembly of chiral plasmonic Au nanoparticles and supramolecular aggregates. The chiral plasmonic nanoparticles serve as the chiral scaffold and chiral optical nanoantenna to modulate the circularly polarized absorption and emission of the supramolecular chromophores. The emissions of the OLEDs are dominated by either chiral excitons or chiral plasmons, dependning on the type of chiral plasmonic nanoparticle. The CP-OLED showing a high external quantum efficiency of 2.5% and a large dis-symmetry factor of 0.31 is achieved, as a result of multiscale chirality transfer, plasmonic enhancement, and the suppression of the overshoot effect. Previously reported CP-OLEDs generally exhibit an inverse relationship between the external quantum efficiency and the dis-symmetry factor. The CP-OLEDs fabricated in our work can achieve both high external quantum efficiencies and high dis-symmetry factors. The external quantum efficiencies of our devices are about two orders of magnitude higher than those of lanthanide-complex-based devices and the dis-symmetry factors are about two orders of magnitude larger than those of chiral cluster-based devices.

The solid-state aggregation of π-conjugated molecules critically influences the performance of organic semiconductors, as charge transport relies on intermolecular electronic coupling, which is determined by both molecular packing and the phase and nodal properties of frontier π-orbitals. This presentation covers two strategies for engineering such aggregates in organic semiconductors.The first strategy is molecular orbital engineering through a molecular substitution approach, enabling control over frontier orbital arrangement without altering molecular shape or crystal packing. Using N,N’-diethynylated derivatives of 6,13-dihydro-6,13-diazapentacene, we have demonstrated this strategy achieving field effect mobilities more than twice of those of their parent pentacene derivatives in organic field effect transistors (OFETs).The second strategy is to use curved π-molecules to access unconventional packing motifs inaccessible to planar frameworks. We highlight the unique π-stacking of a double helicene, which allows diverse functional groups to be introduced without disrupting π–π interactions, enabling high-performance chemical and biological sensors based on OFETs.

Recent innovations in integrated microfluidic systems have advanced the frontier of personalized medicine by leveraging engineered aggregation phenomena to decode complex molecular behaviors. These developments enable the creation of microsystems that translate biological signals into actionable diagnostics tailored to individual health profiles. We present a handheld spinning platform with centrifugal microfluidics (HSP-CM)—a compact, electricity-free diagnostic microsystem designed for ultra-low-cost (~$1.40 USD) detection of urinary total protein (UTP), a key biomarker associated with disease-related protein aggregation. The HSP-CM integrates surface-engineered microchannels with tunable hydrophilic–hydrophobic properties, facilitating precise control over protein aggregation and reagent mixing during centrifugal activation. This personalised diagnostic tool provides rapid (~3 minutes), sensitive, and colourimetric quantification of UTP from minimal sample volumes (5 μL), achieving a detection limit of 3.49 μg/mL. Clinical validation across samples from healthy individuals and patients with myocardial infarction revealed a strong correlation (R = 0.9481) and agreement (90.32%) with conventional laboratory assays. By embedding aggregation science into a portable microsystem, HSP-CM exemplifies a new class of accessible, non-invasive diagnostics tailored for individualised health monitoring, particularly in resource-constrained environments.

Lattice engineering is an important approach to realize atomic-level surface control over metal nanostructures towards enhanced catalytic performances. However, precise engineering of the lattice of metal nanocrystals to control its crystal phase, surface defects, and lattice strains, particularly via wet-chemical methods, remains a key research challenge.[1,2] This talk will introduce some interesting discoveries we have recently made in engineering the crystal phase and surface defects of metal nanostructures with facet-specific characterizations and property studies.[3-5] The importance of phase dependency in catalysis and beyond will be highlighted. Insights to develop synthetic methodology towards precise lattice engineering will also be discussed.

The use of aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) for imaging intracellular active molecules/biomolecules, and phototherapy has become an area of intense research. Recent contributions from our group for this topic will be presented; Supramolecular phthalocyanine assemblies-enhanced synergistic photodynamic and photothermal therapy guided by photoacoustic imaging, integrin-Targeted, Activatable nanophototherapeutics for immune modulation: enhancing photoimmunotherapy efficacy in prostate cancer through macrophage reprogramming, a hypoxia-triggered bioreduction of hydrophilic type I photosensitizer for switchable in vivo photoacoustic imaging and high-specificity cancer phototherapy.