Multi-level Chirality in Liquid Crystals Formed by Achiral Molecules
Abstract
In many biological materials with a hierarchical structure there is an intriguing and unique mechanism responsible for the 'propagation' of order from the molecular to the nano- or micro-scale level. Here we present a much simpler molecular system built of achiral mesogenic dimeric molecules that shows a similar complexity with four levels of structural chirality (i) layer chirality, (ii) helicity of a basic 4-layer repeating unit, (iii) a helix with a pitch of several layers and (iv) mesoscopic helical filaments. As seen in many biological systems, there is a coupling between chirality at different levels. The structures were identified by a combination of hard and soft x-ray diffraction measurements, optical studies and theoretical modelling.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1901.00780,
title = {Multi-level Chirality in Liquid Crystals Formed by Achiral Molecules},
author = {Mirosław Salamończyk and Nataša Vaupotič and Damian Pociecha and Rebecca Walker and John M. D. Storey and Corrie T. Imrie and Cheng Wang and Chenhui Zhu and Ewa Gorecka},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.00780},
year = {2019}
}