Chiral and Antichiral Order in Bent-Core Liquid Crystals

Recent experiments have found a bent-core liquid crystal in which the layer chirality alternates from layer to layer, giving a racemic or “antichiral” material, even though the molecules are uniformly chiral. To explain this effect, we map the liquid crystal onto an Ising model, analogous to a model for chiral order in polymers. We calculate the phase diagram for this model, and show that it has a second-order phase transition between antichiral order and homogeneous chiral order. We discuss how this transition can be studied by further chemical synthesis or by doping experiments.