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ABSTRACT
In some liquid crystal (LC) mixtures of bent-core host molecules that form helical nanofilaments (HNFs) and chiral, rod-shaped molecular guests, the spontaneous chirality of the HNFs is not influenced by the guest handedness. In other mixtures, the filaments become homochiral, responding to the handedness of the guest. We show that the important distinction between these two behaviours is the solubility of the guest material in the HNF phase. In our experiments, chiral LC mesogens doped into the HNF phase result in an enantiomeric imbalance and sometimes change the phase sequence on cooling from the isotropic melt.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
Additional information
Funding
This work was supported by the Soft Materials Research Center under NSF SMRC Grants DMR-0820579 and DMR-1420736, and by ED GAANN Award P200A120014.