The construction of supramolecular chiral materials from achiral building-units has always been a challenging topic in the field of chiral research. It can not only avoid tedious synthesis steps and the use of expensive chiral raw materials

but also provide the understanding of the origin of chirality in chiral materials. Traditionally

it is non-covalent bonds that often act as the "bridge" between the building blocks and chiral superstructure. However

the chiral ordered structures formed by these weak interactions are often easily destroyed by outer stimulus

such as light

heat or solvent

which is completely irreversible without the pre-chiral source. Recently

Wei Zhang and co-workers at Soochow University reported the permanent memory of chirality in achiral polymer system

by combining chiral induction and covalent cross-linking strategy. Interestingly

the stored chiral information in cross-linked structure can trigger the perfect chiral self-recovery (CSR) behaviors after being destroyed by UV light

heat and solvent. This results will pave a new way for producing novel chiroptical materials with reversible chirality from achiral sources.