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Updated: Jan 27, 2026

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality
Published on: March 11, 2022
Chiral Incommensurate Helical Phase in a Smectic of Achiral Bent-Core Mesogens
Adam A S Green1, Michael R Tuchband1, Renfan Shao1
1Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309-0390, USA.
Abstract:
An achiral, bent-core mesogen forms several tilted smectic liquid crystal phases, including a nonpolar, achiral de Vries smectic A which transitions to a chiral, ferroelectric state in applied electric fields above a threshold. At lower temperature, a chiral, ferrielectric phase with a periodic, supermolecular modulation of the tilt azimuth, indicated by a Bragg peak in carbon-edge resonant soft x-ray scattering, is observed. The absence of a corresponding resonant umklapp peak identifies the superlayer structure as a twist-bend-like helix that is only weakly modulated by the smectic layering.
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