Construction of chiral propeller architectures from achiral molecules

The construction of chiral propellers from achiral molecules through hydrogen-bond-driven self-assembly was analyzed. The achiral molecules were placed in between two polyimide-coated/rubber substrates. The rubber polyimide layers could orient the achiral dimers and larger liquid crystal monodomains. The changes in the optical textures of achiral molecules were investigated with polarized optical microscopy (POM). Birefringent achiral N droplets appeared and grew from the isotropic background. The Oseen-Frank elastic-energy-density free energy was used to calculate the molecular-packing model in the propeller-patterned chiral N droplet. It was observed that the helical pitch of these chiral propeller-patterned N droplets was 2R, where R was the radius of propeller-patterned chiral N droplet, which indicates that the helical pitch of these propeller-patterned chiral N droplets depend on the size of the droplets.