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ABSTRACT
In the recent two decades liquid crystal science has contributed significantly to the understanding of mirror symmetry breaking and spontaneous emergence of chirality in fluids. This account tries to summarise the current state of understanding of mirror symmetry breaking in the liquid and liquid crystalline mesophases, ranging from isotropic liquids, via cubic, columnar and tetragonal SmQ phases of polycatenar compounds, the twist bend nematic phases of bent dimesogens to the heliconical and conglomerate type smectic phases of bent-core mesogens. Especially, the importance of dynamic chirality synchronisation of molecular conformers, cooperativity, helical superstructures, layer chirality, network formation, as well as chiral and achiral surface effects is discussed. At the end the transition from local to absolute symmetry breaking, chirality amplification and the relevance for the emergence of uniform chirality in prebiotic fluids and biosystems are considered.
Graphical Abstract
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. A similar chiral domain texture as observed for compound 6 () was also reported for a SmCPR like phase of a bent-core molecule derived from 4-chlororesorcinol, but in this case there is a much larger tilt and a DC phase is induced under an applied field, so that this phase appears to be somewhat different [Citation63].