Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Tortora L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3069190 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Tortora Luana L Lavrentovich Oleg D OD
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20110314 13
In many colloidal systems, an orientationally ordered nematic (N) phase emerges from the isotropic (I) melt in the form of spindle-like birefringent tactoids. In cases studied so far, the tactoids always reveal a mirror-symmetric nonchiral structure, sometimes even when the building units are chiral. We report on chiral symmetry breaking in the nematic tactoids formed in molecularly nonchiral polymer-crowded aqueous solutions of low-molecular weight disodium cromoglycate. The parity is broken by ...[more]