%0 Journal Article
%T Density Functional Theory for Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals
%A S. Belli
%A S. Dussi
%A M. Dijkstra
%A R. van Roij
%J Physics
%D 2014
%I arXiv
%R 10.1103/PhysRevE.90.020503
%X Even though chiral nematic phases were the first liquid crystals experimentally observed more than a century ago, the origin of the thermodynamic stability of cholesteric states is still unclear. In this Letter we address the problem by means of a novel density functional theory for the equilibrium pitch of chiral particles. When applied to right-handed hard helices, our theory predicts an entropy-driven cholesteric phase, which can be either right- or left-handed, depending not only on the particle shape but also on the thermodynamic state. We explain the origin of the chiral ordering as an interplay between local nematic alignment and excluded-volume differences between left- and right-handed particle pairs.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.2113v1