Double-Helical Tiled Chain Structure of the Twist-Bend Liquid Crystal Phase in CB7CB

Tuchband, Michael R.; Shuai, Min; Graber, Keri A.; Chen, Dong; Zhu, Chenhui; Radzihovsky, Leo; Klittnick, Arthur; Foley, Lee; Scarbrough, Alyssa; Porada, Jan H.; Moran, Mark; Yelk, Joseph; Hooper, Justin B.; Wei, Xiaoyu; Bedrov, Dmitry; Wang, Cheng; Korblova, Eva; Walba, David M.; Hexemer, Alexander; Maclennan, Joseph E.; Glaser, Matthew A.; Clark, Noel A.

doi:10.3390/cryst14070583

Double-Helical Tiled Chain Structure of the Twist-Bend Liquid Crystal Phase in CB7CB

Journal Article · Tue Jun 25 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · Crystals

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst14070583· OSTI ID:2446609

Tuchband, Michael R. ^[1]; Shuai, Min ^[1]; Graber, Keri A. ^[1]; Chen, Dong ^[1]; Zhu, Chenhui ^[2]; Radzihovsky, Leo ^[1]; Klittnick, Arthur ^[1]; Foley, Lee ^[1]; Scarbrough, Alyssa ^[1]; Porada, Jan H. ^[1]; Moran, Mark ^[1]; Yelk, Joseph ^[1]; Hooper, Justin B. ^[3]; ^[3]; Bedrov, Dmitry ^[3]; Wang, Cheng ^[2]; ^[1]; ^[1]; Hexemer, Alexander ^[2]; ^[1] more »

Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Advanced Light Source (ALS)
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)

The twist-bend nematic liquid crystal phase is a three-dimensional fluid in which achiral bent molecules spontaneously form an orientationally ordered, macroscopically chiral, heliconical winding of a ten nanometer-scale pitch in the absence of positional ordering. Here, the structure of the twist-bend phase of the bent dimer CB7CB and its mixtures with 5CB is characterized, revealing a hidden invariance of the self-assembly of the twist-bend structure of CB7CB, such that over a wide range of concentrations and temperatures, the helix pitch and cone angle change as if the ground state for a pitch of the TB helix is an inextensible heliconical ribbon along the contour formed by following the local molecular long axis (the director). Remarkably, the distance along the length for a single turn of this helix is given by 2πR_mol, where R_mol is the radius of bend curvature of a single all-trans CB7CB molecule. This relationship emerges from frustrated steric packing due to the bent molecular shape: space in the fluid that is hard to fill attracts the most flexible molecular subcomponents, a theme of nanosegregation that generates self-assembled, oligomer-like correlations of interlocking bent molecules in the form of a brickwork-like tiling of pairs of molecular strands into duplex double-helical chains. At higher temperatures in the twist-bend phase, the cone angle is small, the director contour is nearly along the helix axis z, and the duplex chains are sequences of biaxial elements formed by overlapping half-molecule pairs, with an approximately 45° rotation of the biaxis between each such element along the chain.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science (BSS); National Science Foundation (NSF); Institute for Complex and Adaptive Matter

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 2446609

Journal Information:: Crystals, Journal Name: Crystals Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 14; ISSN 2073-4352

Publisher:: MDPICopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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