Helical microstructures in molluscan biomineralization are a biological example of close packed helices that may form from a colloidal liquid crystal precursor in a twist–bend nematic phase

Berent, Katarzyna; Cartwright, Julyan H. E.; Checa, António; Pimentel, Carlos; Ramos-Silva, Paula; Sainz‐Díaz, C. Ignacio

doi:10.1103/physrevmaterials.6.105601

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…They are important for photonic properties and lie at the heart of structures observed in many recent experiments [10,11,[15][16][17][18]. In addition, many structures of biopolymers have been identified with cholesteric, or chiral, liquid crystal textures [19][20][21][22], and in this vein the properties of cholesterics may find applications in tissue mechanics and developmental biology [23,24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Escape into the third dimension in cholesteric liquid crystals

Pollard,

Alexander

2024

New J. Phys.

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Integer winding disclinations are unstable in a nematic and are removed by an ‘escape into the third dimension’, resulting in a non-singular texture. This process is frustrated in a cholesteric material due to the requirement of maintaining a uniform handedness and instead results in the formation of strings of point defects, as well as complex three-dimensional solitons such as heliknotons that consist of linked dislocations. We give a complete description of this frustration using methods of contact topology. Furthermore, we describe how this frustration can be exploited to stabilise regions of the material where the handedness differs from the preferred handedness. These ‘twist solitons’ are stable in numerical simulation and are a new form of topological defect in cholesteric materials that have not previously been studied.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Escape into the third dimension in cholesteric liquid crystals

Pollard,

Alexander

2024

New J. Phys.

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“…Striking examples include polycrystalline assemblies called biomorphs that consist of metal carbonate and silica in the shape of leaf-like sheets, double helices, funnels, and coral-like objects. , These and other smoothly curved precipitate structures can also show hierarchical architectures and emerge as the result of chemical self-organization far from the equilibrium, not energy minimization . In addition, they can share surprising parallels with the shapes and microscopic organization of biominerals such as nacre and even complicate the identification of Earth’s earliest microfossils. − …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coiling of Secondary Tubes Formed from the Colloidal Exhaust of Primary Chemical Gardens

Siev,

Batista,

Steinbock

2024

J. Phys. Chem. B

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Chemical gardens are self-organized precipitate structures such as thin-walled tubes and membrane-bound cells reminiscent of biological shapes. These usually inorganic precipitates compartmentalize the reaction system and allow the study of materials synthesis in very steep concentration gradients. We create such tubes by steadily injecting a mixture of MnCl 2 and CuSO 4 solutions into a large reservoir of sodium silicate solution. The growing tube is open at its tip and ejects a stream of colloidal particles that aggregate to form a secondary tube above the original one. This secondary tube can coil into a tightly wound nest-like structure, freely suspended underneath the solution−air interface. Using three-dimensional image reconstruction, we analyze the onset of coiling and show that the structure is helical with a helix radius that increases in the vertical direction. The height at which the coiling begins is lowered with each successive repeat of the growth experiment, suggesting that coiling is induced by small variations in the density of the silicate solution.

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“…Then, the crystalline organization is reached with a further increase in the driving force. The usual sequence of isotropic-orientational-positional phase ordering (Oswald and Pieranski, 2005a;Jákli and Saupe, 2006;Blinov, 2011) is sometimes reordered to a direct isotropic-positional/orientational ordering, as observed in monomeric thermotropes (certain cyanobiphenyls (CB) and oxy-cyanobiphenyls (OCB)) (Oh, 1977;Idziak et al, 1996;Oswald and Pieranski, 2005b;Donald et al, 2006;Abukhdeir and Rey, 2008;Chahine et al, 2010;Gudimalla et al, 2021;Nesrullajev, 2022) and biological liquid crystals (BLCs) such as collagen mesophase precursors in the mussel byssus (Knight and Vollrath, 1999;Viney, 2004;Donald et al, 2006;Rey, 2010;Rey and Herrera-Valencia, 2012;Rey et al, 2013;Renner-Rao et al, 2019;Manolakis and Azhar, 2020;Harrington and Fratzl, 2021;Berent et al, 2022). This important and non-classical behavior is the focus of this paper: the direct isotropic-to-smectic A (I-SmA) LC phase transition, where SmA denotes the simplest smectic phase.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometric modeling of phase ordering for the isotropic–smectic A phase transition

Zamora Cisneros,

Wang,

Dorval Courchesne

et al. 2024

Front. Soft Matter

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BackgroundLiquid crystal (LC) mesophases have an orientational and positional order that can be found in both synthetic and biological materials. These orders are maintained until some parameter, mainly the temperature or concentration, is changed, inducing a phase transition. Among these transitions, a special sequence of mesophases has been observed, in which priority is given to the direct smectic liquid crystal transition. The description of these transitions is carried out using the Landau–de Gennes (LdG) model, which correlates the free energy of the system with the orientational and positional order.MethodologyThis work explored the direct isotropic-to-smectic A transition studying the free energy landscape constructed with the LdG model and its relation to three curve families: (I) level-set curves, steepest descent, and critical points; (II) lines of curvature (LOC) and geodesics, which are directly connected to the principal curvatures; and (III) the Casorati curvature and shape coefficient that describe the local surface geometries resemblance (sphere, cylinder, and saddle).ResultsThe experimental data on 12-cyanobiphenyl were used to study the three curve families. The presence of unstable nematic and metastable plastic crystal information was found to add information to the already developed smectic A phase diagram. The lines of curvature and geodesics were calculated and laid out on the energy landscape, which highlighted the energetic pathways connecting critical points. The Casorati curvature and shape coefficient were computed, and in addition to the previous family, they framed a geometric region that describes the phase transition zone.Conclusion and significanceA direct link between the energy landscape’s topological geometry, phase transitions, and relevant critical points was established. The shape coefficient delineates a stability zone in which the phase transition develops. The methodology significantly reduces the impact of unknown parametric data. Symmetry breaking with two order parameters (OPs) may lead to novel phase transformation kinetics and droplets with partially ordered surface structures.

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Helical microstructures in molluscan biomineralization are a biological example of close packed helices that may form from a colloidal liquid crystal precursor in a twist–bend nematic phase

Cited by 5 publications

References 56 publications

Escape into the third dimension in cholesteric liquid crystals

Escape into the third dimension in cholesteric liquid crystals

Coiling of Secondary Tubes Formed from the Colloidal Exhaust of Primary Chemical Gardens

Geometric modeling of phase ordering for the isotropic–smectic A phase transition

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