Chiral solutes can seed the formation of enantiomorphic domains in a twist-bend nematic liquid crystal.

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys

School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom.

Published: April 2013

The twist-bend nematic, an enantiomorphic liquid-crystalline phase, exhibited by the structurally symmetric liquid-crystal dimer CB7CB is induced to form a single domain of uniform handedness, in the bulk, by the addition of the dopant chiral solute (S)-1-phenylethanol. Addition of a nonracemic (or scalemic) mixture of both R and S enantiomers of this solute produced equal volumes of P and M chiral domains for the twist-bend nematic phase. This seeding of the domains in an enantiomorphic nematic conglomerate is revealed using deuterium NMR spectroscopy.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.87.040501DOI Listing

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