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Updated: May 26, 2025

Coulomb Explosion Imaging as a Tool to Distinguish Between Stereoisomers
Published on: August 18, 2017
Nonreciprocal chirality conversion in spatiotemporal evolutions of nematic colloidal entanglement
Jing Zhang1, Wentao Tang2, Zhawure Asilehan1
1Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Abstract:
In soft matter systems, there is a wealth of topological phenomena, such as singular disclination lines and nonsingular defects of skyrmions and hopfions. In a liquid crystal (LC), the topological nature of disclination lines and colloids induces chiral colloidal entanglements. How the chirality of the entanglements is deterministically created and how the chirality conversion is actuated in the disclinations with Möbius strip topology have never been explored. Here, we create colloidal entanglements with designed chirality in the nematic disclination loops with Möbius topology. An irreversible process of chirality change is revealed if we move the colloidal entanglement along the loops. A nonreciprocal chirality conversion in the dynamical colloidal entanglements is demonstrated, which is induced by the interplay between topological profiles and the geometrical curvature of the disclination loop. Colloidal entanglements in opposite chirality are templated in arbitrary shapes of disclination lines. This work opens opportunities to design smart colloidal materials.
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