Similarity and Chirality Measures for Liquid Crystal

Abstract

The mechanism for the transfer of chirality between a chiral dopant and an achiral liquid crystal host phase remains the subject of conjecture. A review of the theoretical approaches undertaken to create a better understanding of the concept of chirality in liquid crystals proposed a Hausdorff measure of chirality between two enantiomers. We compare this measure with a scaled chiral index. The latter has been successful in predicting the helical twisting power of a range of dopants in nematic solvents but possesses no solvent interaction. We propose a combined measure as a predictive tool for helical twisting power and the for the mechanism for chirality transfer.

Keywords:

• hausdorff measure
• scaled chiral index

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful for useful discussions with Dr. G. T. Neal.