Nature Communications (Jan 2022)

A case of antiferrochirality in a liquid crystal phase of counter-rotating staircases

  • Ya-xin Li,
  • Hong-fei Gao,
  • Rui-bin Zhang,
  • Kutlwano Gabana,
  • Qing Chang,
  • Gillian A. Gehring,
  • Xiao-hong Cheng,
  • Xiang-bing Zeng,
  • Goran Ungar

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28024-1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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A 3D‐ordered liquid crystal phase of regular right and left helically twisted columns self‐assembles from straight‐ and bent‐rod molecules. Here calculations indicate that, among four alternative models, the observed complex Fddd structure provides the lowest packing energy for twisted ribbons.