Gibb, C.J. orcid.org/0000-0002-8626-4175, Hobbs, J. orcid.org/0009-0009-5331-1615, Nikolova, D.I. orcid.org/0009-0005-4657-8937 et al. (7 more authors) (2024) Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Polar Fluids. Nature Communications, 15. 5845. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Spontaneous symmetry breaking and emergent polar order are each of fundamental importance to a range of scientific disciplines, as well as generating rich phase behaviour in liquid crystals (LCs). Here, we show the union of these phenomena to lead to two previously undiscovered polar liquid states of matter. Both phases have a lamellar structure with an inherent polar ordering of their constituent molecules. The first of these phases is characterised by polar order and a local tilted structure; the tilt direction processes about a helix orthogonal to the layer normal, the period of which is such that we observe selective reflection of light. The second new phase type is anti-ferroelectric, with the constituent molecules aligning orthogonally to the layer normal. This has led us to term the phases the SmCHP and SmAAF phases, respectively. Further to this, we obtain room temperature ferroelectric nematic (NF) and SmCHP phases via binary mixture formulation of the novel materials described here with a standard NF compound (DIO), with the resultant materials having melting points (and/or glass transitions) which are significantly below ambient temperature. The new soft matter phase types discovered herein can be considered as electrical analogues of topological structures of magnetic spins in hard matter.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Soft Matter Physics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number MRC (Medical Research Council) MR/W006391/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 12 Jul 2024 14:16 |
Last Modified: | 24 Jan 2025 11:48 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-024-50230-2 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:214641 |