Statistical Theory of Helical Twisting in Nematic Liquid Crystals Doped with Chiral Nanoparticles

Abstract

A molecular field theory of the cholesteric ordering in nematic nanocomposites doped with chiral nanoparticles was developed taking into consideration chiral dispersion interaction between rod-like nanoparticles. It was shown that the inverse pitch of the cholesteric helical structure is proportional to the anisotropy of the effective polarizability and the anisotropy of the effective gyration tensor of a nanoparticle in the nematic host. The theory enables one to predict the helical sense inversion induced by a change of the low-frequency dielectric susceptibility of the nematic host phase. The components of the high-frequency effective polarizability and the effective optical activity of a gold rod-like nanoparticle in a particular nematic solvent were calculated numerically.