Control of the Induced Handedness of Helical Nanofilaments Employing Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Fields |
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| Authors: | Ju-Yong Kim Jae-Jin Lee Jun-Sung Park Yong-Jun Choi Suk-Won Choi |
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| Institution: | Department of Advanced Materials Engineering for Information & Electronics, and Integrated Education Institute for Frontier Science & Technology (BK21 Four), Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Gyeonggi-do, Korea; (J.-Y.K.); (J.-J.L.); (J.-S.P.); (Y.-J.C.) |
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| Abstract: | In this paper, a simple and powerful method to control the induced handedness of helical nanofilaments (HNFs) is presented. The nanofilaments are formed by achiral bent-core liquid crystal molecules employing a cholesteric liquid crystal field obtained by doping a rod-like nematogen with a chiral dopant. Homochiral helical nanofilaments are formed in the nanophase-separated helical nanofilament/cholesteric phase from a mixture with a cholesteric phase. This cholesteric phase forms at a temperature higher than the temperature at which the helical nanofilament in a bent-core molecule appears. Under such conditions, the cholesteric liquid crystal field acts as a driving force in the nucleation of HNFs, realizing a perfectly homochiral domain consisting of identical helical nanofilament handedness. |
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| Keywords: | chirality bent-core molecules helical nanofilaments cholesteric liquid crystals chiral dopants circular dichroism |
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