Layer-scale optical chirality of liquid-crystalline phases

Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Sep 2;95(10):107802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.107802. Epub 2005 Aug 31.

Abstract

We present a model for the optical chirality of layered liquid-crystalline phases. The model demonstrates that uniform stacking of chiral layers can lead to significant collective optical rotation, even in the absence of a superlayer helix. We predict the optical rotation of the B2 phases of bent-core liquid crystals, which can have optical rotation as large as 1000 times the molecular optical activity.