Separation of chiral phases by compression kinetic localization of the enantiomers in a monolayer of racemic amphiphiles viewed as mixing cholesteric liquid crystals.pdfVIP

27 March 1998 Chemical Physics Letters 285 1998 306–312 Separation of chiral phases by compression: kinetic localization of the enantiomers in a monolayer of racemic amphiphiles viewed as mixing cholesteric liquid crystals Mitsumasa Iwamoto a , Chen-Xu Wu a , Ou-Yang Zhong-can b a Department of Physical Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152, Japan b Institute of Theoretical Physics, Academia Sinica, P.O. Box 2735, Beijing 100080, China Received 13 October 1997; in final form 19 January 1998 Abstract A monolayer of amphiphiles is studied as a film of cholesteric liquid crystal ChLC mixed by the left- and right-handed chiral enantiomers. The equilibrium equations for the chiral phase separation CPS order parameter and molecular orientation pattern are derived by minimizing the free energy of the mixing ChLC. We found a one-dimensional 1D periodic localization of the enantiomers, a stripe-type of CPS. By incorporating the free energy of the stripe-CPS into the thermodynamic calculation, we show that its pressure–area isotherms behave like a spatial 2D van der Waals equation of state and must have a pressure-plateau region for the phase transition from racemic phase to CPS. This gives a clear explanation of the CPS in a racemic monolayer. 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. 1. Introduction CPS. The study of CPS in the three-dimensional 3D state is especially difficult because both left- In nature, the two molecular enantiomers of left- and right-handed chiral molecules have been classi- and right-handed chiralit