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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Entropy-driven formation of a chiral liquid-crystalline phase of helical filaments
Edward Barry1, Zach Hensel, Zvonimir Dogic
1Rowland Institute at Harvard, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA.
Abstract:
We study the liquid-crystalline phase behavior of a concentrated suspension of helical flagella isolated from Salmonella typhimurium. Flagella are prepared with different polymorphic states, some of which have a pronounced helical character while others assume a rodlike shape. We show that the static phase behavior and dynamics of chiral helices are very different when compared to simpler achiral hard rods. With increasing concentration, helical flagella undergo an entropy-driven first order phase transition to a liquid-crystalline state having a novel chiral symmetry.
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