Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Chirality in Nature02:30

Chirality in Nature

Chirality is the most intriguing yet essential facet of nature, governing life’s biochemical processes and precision. It can be observed from a snail shell pattern in a macroscopic world to an amino acid, the minutest building block of life. Most of the snails around the world have right-coiled shells because of the intrinsic chirality in their genes. All the amino acids present in the human body exist in an enantiomerically pure state, except for glycine - the sole achiral amino acid. The...
Mechanism of Ciliary Motion01:05

Mechanism of Ciliary Motion

The ciliary structures were first seen in 1647 by Antonie Leeuwenhoek while observing the protozoans. In lower organisms, these appendages are responsible for cell movement, while in higher organisms, these appendages help in the movement of the extracellular fluids within the body cavities.
The cilia are made up of microtubules in a 9+2 arrangement, with nine microtubule doublet ring bundles, surrounding a pair of central singlet microtubule bundles. The doublet microtubule bundles are...
Mechanism of Ciliary Motion01:05

Mechanism of Ciliary Motion

The ciliary structures were first seen in 1647 by Antonie Leeuwenhoek while observing the protozoans. In lower organisms, these appendages are responsible for cell movement, while in higher organisms, these appendages help in the movement of the extracellular fluids within the body cavities.
The cilia are made up of microtubules in a 9+2 arrangement, with nine microtubule doublet ring bundles, surrounding a pair of central singlet microtubule bundles. The doublet microtubule bundles are...
Mechanisms of Membrane-bending01:15

Mechanisms of Membrane-bending

The living membranes are flexible due to their fluid mosaic nature; however, their bending into different shapes is an active process regulated by specific lipids and proteins. The membrane bending can be transient as seen in vesicles or stable for a long time as in microvilli. Cells regulate the size, location, and duration of the membrane curvature.
Membrane bending can happen due to intrinsic changes in lipid composition or extrinsic association with different proteins. The proteins involved...
Chirality02:25

Chirality

Chirality is a term that describes the lack of mirror symmetry in an object. In other words, chiral objects cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, our feet are chiral, as the mirror image of the left foot, the right foot, cannot be superposed on the left foot.
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...
Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity02:24

Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity

It is essential to understand the difference between chiral and achiral interactions and the implications thereof in optical activity and their applications. Just as our feet, which are chiral, interact uniquely with chiral objects, such as a pair of shoes, but identically with achiral socks, enantiomers of a molecule exhibit different properties only when they interact with other chiral media. An example of a significant implication from this facet is the phenomenon known as optical activity,...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Soft Colloidal Robots: Magnetically Guided Liquid Crystal Torons for Targeted Micro-Cargo Delivery.

Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)·2026
Same author

Coarse-Grained Modeling of Drug Absorption into Plasticized PVC.

Journal of chemical theory and computation·2026
Same author

Shear-induced bubble nucleation in magmas.

Science (New York, N.Y.)·2025
Same author

Coarse-Grained Insights into Insulin Aspart Adsorption on Plasticized Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) Surfaces.

The journal of physical chemistry. B·2025
Same author

Interactions of insulin aspart hexamer and excipients with plasticized polyvinyl chloride surfaces: A comprehensive investigation combining molecular simulations and experiments.

International journal of biological macromolecules·2025
Same author

Drug Delivery Mechanisms of Poly(glycerol sebacate): An In-Depth Study of the Energetics at the Molecular Scale.

Molecular pharmaceutics·2025

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 3, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
06:24

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal

Published on: October 31, 2019

Thermomechanically driven spirals in a cholesteric liquid crystal.

Patrick Oswald1, Alain Dequidt

  • 1Laboratoire de Physique, Université de Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon, France. patrick.oswald@ens-lyon.fr

Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
|July 23, 2008
PubMed
Summary

Cholesteric fingers exhibit unique drifting and spiraling behaviors under temperature gradients, driven by thermomechanical torques. The Lehmann coefficient

More Related Videos

An Electrochemical Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Device for Quick and Low-Voltage Color Modulation
10:33

An Electrochemical Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Device for Quick and Low-Voltage Color Modulation

Published on: February 27, 2019

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
06:26

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets

Published on: May 15, 2017

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 3, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
06:24

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal

Published on: October 31, 2019

An Electrochemical Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Device for Quick and Low-Voltage Color Modulation
10:33

An Electrochemical Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Device for Quick and Low-Voltage Color Modulation

Published on: February 27, 2019

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
06:26

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets

Published on: May 15, 2017

Area of Science:

  • Liquid crystal physics
  • Soft matter science
  • Thermodynamics

Background:

  • Cholesteric liquid crystals exhibit complex phase behaviors.
  • Homeotropic samples show continuous cholesteric fingers at the unwinding temperature.
  • Temperature gradients can induce novel phenomena in liquid crystal phases.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the behavior of cholesteric fingers under temperature gradients.
  • To attribute the observed phenomena to specific physical mechanisms.
  • To analyze the relationship between thermomechanical properties and equilibrium structure.

Main Methods:

  • Subjecting homeotropic cholesteric samples to a temperature gradient.
  • Measuring the drift velocity of cholesteric fingers.
  • Analyzing the Lehmann coefficient and its behavior around the compensation temperature.

Main Results:

  • Cholesteric fingers drift and spiral when subjected to a temperature gradient.
  • This motion is attributed to the Lehmann thermomechanical torque.
  • The Lehmann coefficient does not change sign at the compensation temperature, unlike the equilibrium twist.

Conclusions:

  • There is no direct relationship between the thermomechanical Lehmann coefficient and the equilibrium twist.
  • The Lehmann coefficient remains non-zero at the compensation temperature due to the absence of inversion symmetry, despite a nematic-like structure.
  • The chirality of molecules is key to this phenomenon.