Experiments on MIO show a second-order SmAF-SmCF transition with mean-field behavior driven by tilt elastic constant softening and diverging dielectric mode amplitude.
Flexoelectricity-driven softening of bend elasticity leads to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in a polar fluid
1 Pith paper cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
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abstract
The origin of recently observed spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in polar fluids is an unsolved problem, and poses fundamental questions as to how heliconical structures emerge in systems composed of achiral molecules. We report on the softening of bend elasticity close to such phase transition, showing that flexoelectric coupling between the electric polarization and the bend deformation is the responsible mechanism, presumably arising from the bent shape of the constituent highly polar molecules.
fields
cond-mat.soft 1years
2026 1verdicts
UNVERDICTED 1representative citing papers
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On the emergence of molecular tilt in a ferroelectric smectic liquid crystal with broken director-inversion symmetry
Experiments on MIO show a second-order SmAF-SmCF transition with mean-field behavior driven by tilt elastic constant softening and diverging dielectric mode amplitude.