Related papers: On the Microscopic Origin of Cholesteric Pitch
Efficient chirality sorting is now highly demanded to separate assembled mesoscopic chiral structures which are of very special physical properties rather than their achiral counterparts or those at the single-particle level. However, the…
We investigate the pitch sensitivity of cholesteric phases of helicoidal patchy cylinders as a generic model for chiral (bio-)polymers and helix-shaped colloidal rods. The behaviour of the macroscopic cholesteric pitch is studied from…
Phase separation of sequence-disordered liquid crystalline polymers, a promising class of technological and biological relevance, is studied by field theory, and thermodynamic mechanisms responsible for orientational ordering observed in…
When a chiral isotropic elastomer is brought to low temperature cholesteric phase, the nematic degree of freedom tends to order and form a helix. Due to the nemato-elastic coupling, this also leads to elastic deformation of the polymer…
We propose a possible new mechanism for a strong and stable magnetic field of compact stars due to an instability in the presence of a chirality imbalance of electrons---the chiral plasma instability. A large chirality imbalance of…
In quantum mechanics, each conserved quantity (e.g., energy, position, linear momentum and angular momentum) is associated with a Hermitian operator. Its expected value can then be determined by performing a measurement on the wavefunction.…
In solid state physics, any phase transition is commonly observed as a change in the microscopic distribution of charge, spin, or current. Here we report the nature of an exotic order parameter inherent in the localized electron orbitals…
We construct phase diagrams for charged rodlike colloids within the second-virial approximation as a function of rod concentration, salt concentration, and colloidal charge. Besides the expected isotropic-nematic transition, we also find…
Both uniaxial and biaxial nematic liquid crystals are defined by orientational ordering of their building blocks. While uniaxial nematics only orient the long molecular axis, biaxial order implies local order along three axes. As the…
The spontaneous emergence of chirality in crystalline solids has profound implications for electronic, optical, and topological properties, making the control of chiral phases a central challenge in materials design. Here, we investigate…
One of the central experimental efforts in nematic colloids research aims to explore how the interplay between the geometry of particles along with the accompanying nematic director deformations and defects around them can provide a means…
Strained amorphous solids often fail mechanically by creating a shear-band. It had been understood that the shear banding instability is usefully described as crossing a spinodal point (with disorder) in an appropriate thermodynamic…
Chirality is a fundamental symmetry concept describing discrete states, i.e., left-handed, right-handed, or achiral, and existing at disparate scales and in many categories of scientific fields. Even though symmetry breaking is…
Chirality transfer from the level of molecular structure up to mesoscopic lengthscales of supramolecular morphologies is a broad and persistent theme in self-assembled soft materials, from biological to synthetic matter. Here, we analyze…
Chirality governs phenomena ranging from chemical reactions to the topology of quasiparticle charge carriers. However, a direct macroscopic probe for crystal chirality remains a significant challenge, especially in time reversal symmetric…
The ordering matrix, which was originally introduced by de Gennes, is a well-known mathematical device for describing orientational order of biaxial nematic liquid crystal. In this paper we propose a new interpretation of the ordering…
We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential…
Addition of particles to a viscoelastic suspension dramatically alters the properties of the mixture, particularly when it is sheared or otherwise processed. Shear-induced stretching of the polymers results in elastic stress that causes a…
Chirality in inorganic nanoparticles and nanostructures has gained increasing scientific interest, because of the possibility to tune their ability to interact differently with left- and right-handed circularly polarized light. In some…
In chemistry and biochemistry, chirality represents the structural asymmetry characterized by non-superimposable mirror images for a material like DNA. In physics, however, chirality commonly refers to the spin-momentum locking of a…