Chirality-Enabled Liquid Crystalline Physical Gels with High Modulus but Low Driving Voltage
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 2, 2026

An Electrochemical Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Device for Quick and Low-Voltage Color Modulation
Published on: February 27, 2019
Huan Ruan1, Guannan Chen1, Xiaoyu Zhao1
1Key Lab for Material Chemistry of Energy Conversion and Storage, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering , Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) , Wuhan 430074 , China.
Abstract:
Self-supporting liquid crystalline physical gels with facile electro-optic response are highly desirable, but their development is challenging because both the storage modulus and driving voltage increase simultaneously with gelator loading. Herein, we report liquid crystalline physical gels with high modulus but low driving voltage. This behavior is enabled by chirality transfer from the molecular level to three-dimensional fibrous networks during the self-assembly of 1,4-benzenedicarboxamide phenylalanine derivatives. Interestingly, the critical gel concentration is as low as 0.1 wt %. Our findings open doors to understanding and exploiting the role of chirality in organic gels.
Related Concept Videos
Chirality
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...
Relation between Poisson's ratio, Modulus of Elasticity and Modulus of Rigidity
Physical Properties Affecting Solubility
As for any solution, the solubility of a gas in a liquid is affected by the attractive intermolecular forces between solute and solvent species. Unlike solid and liquid solutes, however, there is no solute-solute intermolecular attraction to overcome when a gaseous solute dissolves in a liquid solvent since the atoms or molecules comprising a gas are far separated and experience negligible interactions. Consequently, solute-solvent interactions are the sole...
Chirality in Nature
Bulk Modulus
Fineness Modulus
Consider performing sieve analysis on sand through a set of ASTM sieves. The weight of aggregate retained in each sieve and pan placed at the bottom is recorded, as given in Column B of Table 1.
To determine the fineness modulus of...

