Layer-Scale Optical Chirality of Liquid-Crystalline Phases

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.