Distinguished Researcher Chen Muqing from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Dongguan University of Technology, in collaboration with Professor Du Pingwu from the University of Science and Technology of China and Professor Zhu Yihan from Zhejiang University of Technology, has developed the first curved carbon nanocoil material featuring nitrogen-doped Riemann surfaces, filling a gap in the field of nitrogen heteroatom-doped curved carbon helical materials. Recently, this research achievement was published in the Nature subsidiary journal Nature Communications, with the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Dongguan University of Technology as the first affiliation.

Molecular-based carbon materials have attracted considerable attention due to their unique geometric configurations and physicochemical properties, including electrical conductivity, excellent visible light absorption, and luminescence. A graphene sheet continuously spiraling around an axis perpendicular to its basal plane can form a three-dimensional structure with a Riemann surface (Figure 1). Theoretical predictions suggest that carbon coils with Riemann-surface-like geometries can function as quantum conductors, generating substantial magnetic fields and inductance when a voltage is applied. Carbon nanocoil materials with Riemann surfaces are predicted to possess distinctive structures and novel physical properties. However, realizing such helical topologies with extended conjugation represents a significant challenge, which has stimulated considerable interest among chemists in designing and synthesizing these multidimensional curved carbon architectures.