Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in polar fluid-heliconical ferroelectric nematic phase

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Karcz, Jakub; Herman, Jakub; Rychlowicz, Natan; Kula, Przemyslaw; Gorecka, Ewa; Szydlowska, Jadwiga; Majewski, Pawel W.; Pociecha, Damian
• 署名单位: Military University of Technology in Warsaw; University of Warsaw
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-9388
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adn6812
• 发表日期: 2024-06-07
• 页码: 1096-1099
• 关键词: liquid-crystals

摘要

Spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking by formation of chiral structures from achiral building blocks and emergent polar order are phenomena rarely observed in fluids. Separately, they have both been found in certain nematic liquid crystalline phases; however, they have never been observed simultaneously. Here, we report a heliconical arrangement of achiral molecules in the ferroelectric nematic phase. The phase is thus spontaneously both polar and chiral. Notably, the pitch of the heliconical structure is comparable to the wavelength of visible light, giving selective reflection controllable by temperature or application of a weak electric field. Despite bearing resemblance to the heliconical twist-bend nematic phase, this chiral ferroelectric nematic phase arises from electrical interactions that induce a noncollinear orientation of electric dipoles.