Optical activity produced by layer chirality in bent-core liquid crystals

Large optical activity has recently been observed in chiral smectic liquid crystalline phases formed from achiral bent-core molecules. The origin of the optical activity remains unclear and has been attributed to both a helical superstructure and the layer chirality produced by simultaneous tilt and polar ordering of bent-core mesogens in the B2 phase. Here, we directly demonstrate that layer chirality produces optical activity in the well ordered SmC(A)P(A) subphase.