Modulated structures in a nematic model with chiral interactions

We have been using elementary Maier-Saupe statistical lattice models, with a choice of discrete microscopic nematic directors, to account for the sequences of uniaxial and biaxial structures in the phase diagrams of nematic liquid crystals. In some more recent works, we have included chiral interactions to explain the onset of cholesteric structures. If the nematic directors are restricted to point along p planar directions, which is a nematic version of the p-state chiral clock model, calculations on a Bethe lattice led to a phase diagram with uniform and modulated structures, depending on temperature and a parameter of chirality (1). We then consider analogous model systems, with directors of three-dimensional symmetry, and resort to real-space renormalization-group calculations.

(1) Modulated structures in a Lebwohl–Lasher model with chiral interactions, E.S. Nascimento, A. Petri, S.R. Salinas, Physica A531, 121592 (2019).