Nicholas Reinsvold with Charles Rosenblatt

Surface Orientation of Chiral Liquid Crystals

It is well documented that placing chiral liquid crystal molecules on an achiral surface causes the molecular orientation to twist locally due to the chirality of molecules. This experiment will use two distinct chiral molecular species in a mixture. One molecule will have a left twist while the other molecule will have a right twist, in an attempt to produce a mixture with no overall twist. The two chiral molecules must be distinct species in order to prevent twisting but still retain chiral properties which would be lost if the molecules were the same species. The mixture will be placed on an achiral surface treated for alignment along a specific azimuthal axis.”  The molecules will be examined to determine if rotation occurs after the initial alignment. This experiment will be supervised by Professor Charles Rosenblatt and Yoonseuk Choi.