Chiral self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals is driven by crystallite bundles

Chirality transfer across length-scales is an intriguing phenomenon but connecting the properties of individual building blocks to the emergent features of their resulting large-scale structure remains challenging. Here, the authors investigate the origins of mesophase chirality in cellulose nanocrystal suspensions, whose self-assembly into chiral photonic films has attracted significant interest.