The interplay between spatial and heliconical orientational order in twist-bend nematic materials

Saha, Rony; Feng, Chenrun; Welch, Chris; Mehl, G. H.; Feng, Jun; Zhu, Chenhui; Gleeson, Jim T.; Sprunt, Samuel; Jakli, Antal

Abstract

The helical pitch formed by organic molecules, such as the α-helix of proteins, usually requires hydrogen bonding between chiral units and long-range positional order. It was recently found that certain liquid crystal oligomers can have a twist-bend nematic (NTB) phase with nanoscale heliconical structure without hydrogen bonding, molecular chirality or positional order. To understand the nature of this unique structure, here we present hard and resonant tender X-ray scattering studies of two novel sulfur containing dimer materials. We simultaneously measure the temperature dependences of the helical pitch and the correlation length of both the helical and positional order. In addition to an unexpected strong variation of the pitch with the length of the spacer connecting the monomer units, we find that at the transition to the NTBphase the positional correlation length drops. The helical structure was found not only in the NTBphase but observed even in the upper range of a smectic phase that forms just below the NTBstate. The coexistence of smectic layering and the heliconical order indicates a layered (SmATB) phase wherein the rigid units of the dimers are tilted with respect to the smectic layer normal in order to accommodate the bent conformation of the dimers and the tilt direction rotates along the heliconical axis.

Citation

Saha, R., Feng, C., Welch, C., Mehl, G. H., Feng, J., Zhu, C., Gleeson, J. T., Sprunt, S., & Jakli, A. (2021). The interplay between spatial and heliconical orientational order in twist-bend nematic materials. Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP, 23(7), 4055-4063. https://doi.org/10.1039/d0cp06633h

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 3, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Feb 3, 2021
• Publication Date: Feb 21, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 15, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 15, 2021
• Journal: Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
• Print ISSN: 1463-9076
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 7
• Pages: 4055-4063
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d0cp06633h
• Keywords: Physical and Theoretical Chemistry; General Physics and Astronomy
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3724598