Local chiral inversion of chiral nematic liquid crystals in cylinders

Confinement twists achiral liquid crystals and causes chiral liquid crystals to twist in the opposite handedness: cases in and around sessile droplets

“…42,43 Furthermore, achiral LCs under confinement, e.g., droplets and cylinders, can form chiral structures [8][9][10][29][30][31][32][44][45][46][47][48] and vice versa. 34 Confinements may afford multiple meta-stable structures, 43,[49][50][51] often resulting in chiral structures having the opposite handedness to their bulk ones, of which the handednesses and helical pitch are determined by the chirality of the mesogens and dopants. For example, the twist handedness can be reversed locally, [51][52][53] or domains of different handedness coexist, [54][55][56] resulting in heterochiral structures despite their energetic penalty.…”

“…34 Confinements may afford multiple meta-stable structures, 43,[49][50][51] often resulting in chiral structures having the opposite handedness to their bulk ones, of which the handednesses and helical pitch are determined by the chirality of the mesogens and dopants. For example, the twist handedness can be reversed locally, [51][52][53] or domains of different handedness coexist, [54][55][56] resulting in heterochiral structures despite their energetic penalty. These confinement effects involving surface anchoring, elastic anisotropy, saddle-splay elasticity, topological defects, and metastability, have advanced our understanding of the partially ordered matter and its applications.…”