Helical Nanofilaments and the High Chirality Limit of Smectics-A

Abstract

Liquid crystalline systems exhibiting both macroscopic chirality and smectic order experience frustration resulting in mesophases possessing complex three-dimensional order. In the twist-grain-boundary phase, defect lattices mediate the propagation of twist throughout the system. We propose a new chiral smectic structure composed of a lattice of chiral bundles as a model of the helical nanofilament (B4) phase of bent core smectics.

4 pages, 3 figures, the full catastrophe

References in corpus (1)

• Smectic Phases with Cubic Symmetry: The Splay Analog of the Blue Phase

Cited by in corpus (10)

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• Filamentous phages as building blocks for reconfigurable and hierarchical self-assembly
• Tracing chirality from molecular organization to triply-periodic network assemblies: Threading biaxial twist through block copolymer gyroids
• Smectic Pores and Defect Cores
• Screw Symmetry, Chiral Hydrodynamics and Odd Instability in Active Cholesterics
• Straight Round the Twist: Frustration and Chirality in Smectics-A