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We present the first preparation and properties of chiral nanocapsules. The chiral shell, a polyurea derivative, was obtained by interfacial emulsion polymerization of L-lysine with polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate. The chirality of these nanocapsules was manifested by its ability to induce conformational deracemization of liquid crystal. This induced chirality was measured using the “Raynes experiment”, in which the cell’s boundary conditions impose a ±90o rotation of the liquid crystal director from one surface to the other. Both left and right-handed director twist domains appear on cooling from the isotropic to the nematic phase. Owing to the weak induced chirality of the liquid crystal, one sense of director rotation is energetically more favorable and its domain size expands, resulting in curvature of the domain walls. The curvature was measured as a function of capsule concentration, and serves as a metric of the induction of chirality in the surrounding liquid crystal. 

We study decomposition of geometrically enforced nematic topological defects bearing relatively large defect strengths m in effectively two-dimensional planar systems. Theoretically, defect cores are analyzed within the mesoscopic Landau - De Gennes approach in terms of the tensor nematic order parameter. We demonstrate a robust tendency of defect decomposition into elementary units where two qualitatively different scenarios imposing total defect strengths to a nematic region are employed. Some theoretical predictions are verified experimentally, where arrays of defects bearing charges m = ±1, and even m = ±2, are enforced within a plane-parallel nematic cell using an AFM scribing method. 

A novel structure was observed below the smectic-A–smectic-C phase transition in a very thin open cell having an air interface above and enforced planar anchoring at the substrate below. The structure appears as periodic dark and light streaks running perpendicular to the oily streaks, which are present in the smectic-A phase [D. Coursault et al., Soft Matter, 2016, 12, 678]. These new streaks, which we call ‘‘soapy streaks’’, form by extending from one oily streak to the next in discrete steps, eliminating optical evidence at visible wavelengths of the oily streaks. At lower temperatures the streaks can undulate and exhibit a sawtooth-like structure; such a structure is chiral in two dimensions. A possible scenario for the origin of these streaks is presented. 

Chiral periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) materials have been shown to deracemize a configurationally achiral, but conformationally racemic liquid crystal in which the PMO is embedded. In particular, application of an electric field E in the liquid crystal’s smectic-A phase results in a rotation of the liquid crystal director by an angle proportional to E, which is detected optically — this is the so-called “electroclinic” effect. Here we present results from electroclinic measurements as a function of frequency and temperature, which allow us to distinguish the component of optical signal that arises from liquid crystal chirality induced within the PMO’s chiral pores from that induced just outside the silica colloids. Our central result is that the overwhelming source of our electrooptic signal emanates from outside the PMO, and that the contribution from the liquid crystal embedded in the chiral pores is much smaller and below the noise level.