Control of the Induced Handedness of Helical Nanofilaments Employing Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Fields
Ju-Yong Kim,
Jae-Jin Lee,
Jun-Sung Park,
Yong-Jun Choi,
Suk-Won Choi
Affiliations
Ju-Yong Kim
Department of Advanced Materials Engineering for Information & Electronics, and Integrated Education Institute for Frontier Science & Technology (BK21 Four), Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Jae-Jin Lee
Department of Advanced Materials Engineering for Information & Electronics, and Integrated Education Institute for Frontier Science & Technology (BK21 Four), Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Jun-Sung Park
Department of Advanced Materials Engineering for Information & Electronics, and Integrated Education Institute for Frontier Science & Technology (BK21 Four), Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Yong-Jun Choi
Department of Advanced Materials Engineering for Information & Electronics, and Integrated Education Institute for Frontier Science & Technology (BK21 Four), Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Suk-Won Choi
Department of Advanced Materials Engineering for Information & Electronics, and Integrated Education Institute for Frontier Science & Technology (BK21 Four), Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
In this paper, a simple and powerful method to control the induced handedness of helical nanofilaments (HNFs) is presented. The nanofilaments are formed by achiral bent-core liquid crystal molecules employing a cholesteric liquid crystal field obtained by doping a rod-like nematogen with a chiral dopant. Homochiral helical nanofilaments are formed in the nanophase-separated helical nanofilament/cholesteric phase from a mixture with a cholesteric phase. This cholesteric phase forms at a temperature higher than the temperature at which the helical nanofilament in a bent-core molecule appears. Under such conditions, the cholesteric liquid crystal field acts as a driving force in the nucleation of HNFs, realizing a perfectly homochiral domain consisting of identical helical nanofilament handedness.
