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Related Concept Videos

Chirality02:25

Chirality

27.5K
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...
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Chirality in Nature02:30

Chirality in Nature

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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.
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Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers02:25

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

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Molecules that possess multiple chiral centers can afford a large number of stereoisomers. For instance, while some molecules like 2-butanol have one chiral center, defined as a tetrahedral carbon atom with four different substituents attached, several molecules like butane-2,3-diol have multiple chiral centers. A simple formula to predict the number of stereoisomers possible for a molecule with n chiral centers is 2n. However, there can be a lower number where some of the stereoisomers are...
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Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur02:30

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

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Chirality is most prevalent in carbon-based tetrahedral compounds, but this important facet of molecular symmetry extends to sp3-hybridized nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur centers, including trivalent molecules with lone pairs. Here, the lone pair behaves as a functional group in addition to the other three substituents to form an analogous tetrahedral center that can be chiral.
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...
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Prochirality02:05

Prochirality

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The concept of prochirality leads to the nomenclature of the individual faces of a molecule and plays a crucial role in the enantioselective reaction. It is a concept where two or more achiral molecules react to produce chiral products. A typical process is the reaction of an achiral ketone to generate a chiral alcohol. Here, the achiral reactant reacts with an achiral reducing agent, sodium borohydride, to generate an equimolar mixture of the chiral enantiomers of the product. For example, an...
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Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity02:24

Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity

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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,...
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Tuning the Contractility and Deformation Modes of Active Actin-Based Assemblies In Vitro: From Two-Dimensional Active Networks to Liquid Crystal Drops
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Layered Chiral Active Matter: Beyond Odd Elasticity.

S J Kole1, Gareth P Alexander2, Sriram Ramaswamy1

  • 1Centre for Condensed Matter Theory, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.

Physical Review Letters
|July 2, 2021
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Chirality fundamentally alters the dynamics of active liquid crystals, creating unique vortex arrays. This discovery opens new avenues for controlling active matter systems with external strain.

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Area of Science:

  • Soft Matter Physics
  • Active Matter Physics
  • Liquid Crystals

Background:

  • Chirality in equilibrium liquid crystals yields diverse 3D structures.
  • Chiral and achiral phases with identical symmetries share similar dynamics.
  • Active systems introduce novel dynamic behaviors not seen in equilibrium.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how chirality modifies the dynamics of layered liquid crystals in active systems.
  • To explore the differences in hydrodynamics between active cholesterics and equilibrium smectic-A liquid crystals.
  • To identify potential applications of these dynamic modifications, such as engineered vortex arrays.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing active model H*, a model for pseudoscalar hydrodynamics in a momentum-conserving fluid.
  • Analyzing the dynamics in both two and three dimensions.
  • Investigating the role of active "odder" elasticity in chiral systems.

Main Results:

  • Chirality qualitatively modifies the dynamics of layered liquid crystals in active systems.
  • Active cholesteric hydrodynamics fundamentally differ from smectic-A liquid crystals in 3D.
  • A 2D chiral layered state is generically unstable but can be tuned.
  • Engineered columnar vortex arrays with antiferromagnetic vorticity alignment are demonstrated.

Conclusions:

  • Active chirality introduces unique hydrodynamic behaviors distinct from equilibrium systems.
  • The findings enable the engineering of controllable vortex arrays using external strain.
  • The instability of 2D chiral states can be managed in experimental setups.