Chirality Transfer from an Innately Chiral Nanocrystal Core to a Nematic Liquid Crystal 2: Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystals.

The importance of and the difference between molecular versus structural core chirality of substances that form nanomaterials, and their ability to transmit and amplify their chirality to and within a surrounding condensed medium is yet to be exactly understood. Here we demonstrate that neat as well as disodium cromoglycate (DSCG) surface-modified cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) with both molecular and morphological core chirality can induce homochirality in racemic nematic lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal (rac-N-LCLC) tactoids. In comparison to the parent chiral organic building blocks, D-glucose, endowed only with molecular chirality, both CNCs showed a superior chirality transfer ability.

Chiral, Magnetic, and Photosensitive Liquid Crystalline Nanocomposites Based on Multifunctional Nanoparticles and Achiral Liquid Crystals.

Nanoparticles serving as a multifunctional and multiaddressable dopant to modify the properties of liquid crystalline matrices are developed by combining cobalt ferrite nanocrystals with organic ligands featuring a robust photosensitive unit and a source of chirality from the natural pool. These nanoparticles provide a stable nanocomposite when dispersed in achiral liquid crystals, giving rise to chiral supramolecular structures that can respond to UV-light illumination, and, at the same time, the formed nanocomposite possesses strong magnetic response. We report on a nanocomposite that shows three additional functionalities (chirality and responsiveness to UV light and magnetic field) upon the introduction of a single dopant into achiral liquid crystals.

Temperature dependence of the pitch in chiral lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals.

One of the most simple cases in which chirality at the microscopic level produces a chiral macroscopic structure is the chiral nematic liquid crystal phase. In such a phase, the preferred direction of molecular orientation rotates in helical fashion, with the pitch of the helix in different systems ranging from around 100 nm to as large as can be measured (∼10 mm). For almost all thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals, the ordered entities are formed from strong bonds, so the pitch varies in accordance with how the interactions between these largely immutable entities are affected by changing conditions.