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Colloids

Chiral interactions in liquid crystals

Nature Materials volume 17, pages 14–15 (2018)Cite this article

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The chirality of colloids dispersed in achiral liquid crystals shapes colloidal dynamics and interactions, giving rise to chiral supramolecular assemblies and attractive or repulsive colloidal motions.

Our right and left hands, while being mirror images of one another, cannot be superimposed when the palms face the same direction. This phenomenon is referred to as chirality, which is derived from the Greek word 'kheir', meaning hand1. Nature uses chirality as a design principle in many clever ways. For instance, the distinct smells of lemons and oranges arise from chiral isomers of the same molecule (limonene)2. The chirality of molecules also has remarkable effects on liquid crystals, fluid phases that have long-range orientational order3. It can, for example, lead to the appearance of supramolecular helices on the micrometre scale that rotate the polarization of light. These optical effects are used in a wide range of technologies, including the ubiquitous liquid crystal displays of televisions and smartphones. Now, writing in Nature Materials, Ivan Smalyukh and colleagues4 report the synthesis of chiral colloids with arbitrary right- or left-handedness, and demonstrate that specification of the handedness of chiral colloids in achiral liquid crystals can be used to program either repulsive or attractive intercolloidal interactions. These results provide new rules for designing colloidal superstructures in liquid crystals.

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Figure 1: Chiral colloids in an achiral liquid crystal and chirality-dependent interactions of colloids.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, USA

    Karthik Nayani, Young-Ki Kim & Nicholas L. Abbott

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  1. Karthik Nayani
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  2. Young-Ki Kim
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  3. Nicholas L. Abbott
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Nayani, K., Kim, YK. & Abbott, N. Chiral interactions in liquid crystals. Nature Mater 17, 14–15 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat5055

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