Abstract
We have studied the properties of biaxial particles interacting via an anisotropic pair potential, involving second rank quadrupolar and third rank octupolar coupling terms, using Monte Carlo simulation. The particles occupy the sites of a 2D square lattice and the interactions are restricted to nearest neighbours. The system exhibits spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking from an isotropic phase to a chiral modulated nematic phase, composed of ambidextrous chiral domains. When two-fold axes of quadrupolar and octupolar tensors coincide this modulated phase appears to be the ambidextrous cholesteric phase of pitch comparable with a few lattice spacings, which can be regarded as a limiting case of the nematic twist bend phase. The associated phase transition is first-order.
Connections
Explore this paper’s authors, topics and related work.
Building this map preview
BZPEER is loading the nearby papers, people, topics and institutions for this page.
Reviews 0
Write a review
No reviews yet.
Discussion 0
Add a comment
No comments yet.