Related papers: Chiral Lyotropic Liquid Crystals: TGB Phases and H…
Chiral molecules form a number of non-chiral structures, the simplest being an isotropic fluid phase. In a mesophase of achiral molecules the fluctuations will on average be achiral as well: left-handed twists and right-handed twists will…
Molecular chirality leads to a wonderful variety of equilibrium structures, from the simple cholesteric phase to the twist-grain-boundary phases, and it is responsible for interesting and technologically important materials like…
Colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two fluids can form a wide range of different structures. Replacing one of the fluid with a liquid crystal increases the complexity of interactions and results in a greater range of…
Nuclei of ordered materials emerging from the isotropic state usually show a shape topologically equivalent to a sphere; the well-known examples are crystals and nematic liquid crystal droplets. In this work, we explore experimentally and…
We study the phase behaviour of cholesteric liquid crystal shells with different geometries. We compare the cases of tangential and no anchoring at the surface, focussing on the former case, which leads to a competition between the…
In the hexagonal columnar phase of chiral polymers a bias towards cholesteric twist competes with braiding along an average direction. When the chirality is strong, topological defects proliferate, leading to either a tilt grain boundary…
Colloidal membranes, self assembled monolayers of aligned rod like molecules, offer a template for designing membranes with definite shapes and curvature, and possibly new functionalities in the future. Often the constituent rods, due to…
We introduce a model to describe columnar phases of chiral discotic liquid phases in which the normals to disc-like molecules are constrained to lie parallel to columnar axes. The model includes separate chiral interactions favoring,…
Cholesteric Liquid Crystals (CLCs), subject to externally applied magnetic fields and confined between two parallel planar surfaces with strong homeotropic anchoring conditions, are found to undergo transitions to different types of…
Biomolecules are often very long with a definite chirality. DNA, xanthan and poly-gamma-benzyl-glutamate (PBLG) can all form columnar crystalline phases. The chirality, however, competes with the tendency for crystalline order. For chiral…
Liquid crystals are assemblies of rod-like molecules which self-organize to form mesophases, in-between ordinary liquids and anisotropic crystals. At each point, the molecules collectively orient themselves along a privileged direction,…
This paper reviews the complex ordered structures induced by chirality in liquid crystals. In general, chirality favors a twist in the orientation of liquid-crystal molecules. In some cases, as in the cholesteric phase, this favored twist…
The surface alignment of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) can be not only planar (tangential) but also homeotropic, with self-assembled aggregates perpendicular to the substrate, as demonstrated by mapping optical retardation and…
When chiral liquid crystals or magnets are subjected to applied fields or other anisotropic environments, the competition between favored twist and anisotropy leads to the formation of complex defect structures. In some cases, the defects…
In a nematic gel, the appearance of nematic order is accompanied by a spontaneous elongation of the gel parallel to the nematic director. If such a gel is made chiral, it has a tendency to form a cholesteric helical texture, in which local…
Detection of chiral molecules requires amplification of chirality to measurable levels. Typically, amplification mechanisms are considered at the microscopic scales of individual molecules and their aggregates. Here we demonstrate chirality…
The geometric shape, symmetry, and topology of colloidal particles often allow for controlling colloidal phase behavior and physical properties of these soft matter systems. In liquid crystalline dispersions, colloidal particles with low…
We carry out Monte Carlo simulations on fluid membranes with orientational order and multiple edges in the presence and absence of external forces. The membrane resists bending and has an edge tension, the orientational order couples with…
The twist-bend nematic liquid crystal phase is a three-dimensional fluid in which achiral bent molecules spontaneously form an orientationally ordered macroscopically chiral heliconical winding of molecular scale pitch, in absence of…
Recently published preprint (A. Ashkinazi, H.Chhabra, A.El.Moumane, M.M.C.Tortora, J.P.K. Doye, Chirality transfer in lyotropic twist-bend nematics, arXiv:2508.03544v1 (2025)) has reawakened also interest to various mechanisms of chirality…