2014/04/08 by S. Belli, Simone Belli, S. Dussi +5
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Density functional theory #Entropy (arrow of time) #Excluded volume #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Liquid crystal #Liquid crystalline #Material Dynamics and Properties #Materials science #Molecular spectroscopy and chirality #Particle (ecology) #Physics #Polymer #Quantum mechanics #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.90.020503
published as Phys. Rev. E 90, 020503 (2014)
arxiv created 2014/04/08 · openalex publication_date 2014/08/27 · arxiv updated 2014/09/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Even though chiral nematic phases were the first liquid crystals experimentally observed more than a century ago, the origin of the thermodynamic stability of cholesteric states is still unclear. In this Rapid Communication we address the problem by means of a density functional theory for the equilibrium pitch of chiral particles. When applied to right-handed hard helices, our theory predicts an entropy-driven cholesteric phase, which can be either right or left handed, depending not only on the particle shape but also on the thermodynamic state. We explain the origin of the chiral ordering as an interplay between local nematic alignment and excluded-volume differences between left- and right-handed particle pairs.