Chiral and Antichiral Order in Bent-Core Liquid Crystals
arXiv:cond-mat/0302309 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.165501
Abstract
Recent experiments have found a bent-core liquid crystal in which the layer chirality alternates from layer to layer, giving a racemic or "antichiral" material, even though the molecules are uniformly chiral. To explain this effect, we map the liquid crystal onto an Ising model, analogous to a model for chiral order in polymers. We calculate the phase diagram for this model, and show that it has a second-order phase transition between antichiral order and homogeneous chiral order. We discuss how this transition can be studied by further chemical synthesis or by doping experiments.
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