Chirality transfer in a ferroelectric gel

Helical nanoropes formed by the gel strands in the FLC gel system

Upon gelating a ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) system, the chirality due to the inherent helicity of the FLC is transferred to the non gel network. As a result the gel strands made out of non-chiral gelator, forms interesting twisted rope-like structures of nanoscale. These nanoropes formed by chiral imprinting, exhibit behaviours similar to hierarchically self assembled biological systems. These helical nano-structures also render a possibility to fabricate chiral semiconducting nanowires (combined with the system described previously) that could be potentially employed as chiral plasmonic systems. See Soft Matter, 2014, 10, 5905-5915.

Posted by S. Vimala