Abstract
Banana-shaped molecules are mesogenic molecules that are able to form liquid crystal phases. The onset of interest in such molecules was spurred by the hope of obtaining biaxial nematic phases. Instead of the expected biaxial phase, another phase has been found. It was a spontaneously modulated nematic phase which got the name the nematic twist-bend phase (NTB), due to the spontaneous elastic deformations. In this phase the banana molecules attain orientations that follow a heliconical structure whose pitch is comparable with molecular dimensions. It is especially interesting since the banana molecules are achiral and the resultant phase is chiral. In this work we present the properties of the twist-bend phase obtained on the basis of the Landau-de Gennes theory.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Grant No. DEC-2013/11/B/ST3/04247 of the National Science Center in Poland.
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Chrzanowska, A. (2017). Nematic Twist-Bend Phases of Liquid Crystals. In: Fesenko, O., Yatsenko, L. (eds) Nanophysics, Nanomaterials, Interface Studies, and Applications . NANO 2016. Springer Proceedings in Physics, vol 195. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56422-7_35
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56422-7_35
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