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Updated: Oct 7, 2025
08:07
A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality
Published on: March 11, 2022
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Electric field control of chirality.
Piush Behera1,2, Molly A May3, Fernando Gómez-Ortiz4
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Science Advances
|January 5, 2022
Summary
Researchers demonstrate electric field control of chirality in polar textures, offering a new pathway for chiral electronics. This work explores the deterministic and reversible manipulation of chirality in ferroelectric vortices.
Area of Science:
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
Background:
- Polar textures are investigated as analogs to spin-based textures in ferromagnets.
- Chirality is a key property with potential applications in advanced electronic devices.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate deterministic and reversible control of chirality in ferroelectric vortices using an electric field.
- To elucidate the microscopic origins and switching mechanisms of chirality in these systems.
Main Methods:
- Optical second-harmonic generation-based circular dichroism was employed for experimental observation.
- Phase-field modeling and second-principles simulations were used for theoretical analysis.
Main Results:
- Deterministic and reversible control of chirality over mesoscale regions in ferroelectric vortices was achieved via electric field application.
- The study detailed the microscopic origins, switching pathways, and electric field control mechanisms of chirality.
Conclusions:
- Chirality can emerge from nonchiral materials and be controlled by an electric field.
- This offers significant implications for developing novel electronics utilizing chirality as a field-controllable order parameter.
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