Emergent biaxiality in chiral hybrid liquid crystals

Jin-Sheng Wu, Marina Torres Lázaro, Haridas Mundoor, Henricus H. Wensink and Ivan I. Smalyukh ()
Additional contact information
Jin-Sheng Wu: University of Colorado
Marina Torres Lázaro: Université Paris-Saclay & CNRS
Haridas Mundoor: University of Colorado
Henricus H. Wensink: Université Paris-Saclay & CNRS
Ivan I. Smalyukh: University of Colorado

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Abstract Biaxial nematic liquid crystals are fascinating systems sometimes referred to as the Higgs boson of soft matter because of experimental observation challenges. Here we describe unexpected states of matter that feature biaxial orientational order of colloidal supercritical fluids and gases formed by sparse rodlike particles. Colloidal rods with perpendicular surface boundary conditions exhibit a strong biaxial symmetry breaking when doped into conventional chiral nematic fluids. Minimization of free energy prompts these particles to orient perpendicular to the local molecular director and the helical axis, thereby imparting biaxiality on the hybrid molecular-colloidal system. The ensuing phase diagram features colloidal gas and liquid and supercritical colloidal fluid states with long-range biaxial orientational symmetry, as supported by analytical and numerical modeling at all hierarchical levels of ordering. Unlike for nonchiral hybrid systems, dispersions in chiral nematic hosts display biaxial orientational order at vanishing colloid volume fractions, promising both technological and fundamental research utility.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-54236-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-54236-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54236-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().