Compression induced chiral symmetry breaking of monolayers comprised of banana-shaped achiral molecules at an air-water interface: Williams-Bragg approach.
Chirality of monolayers comprised of banana-shaped achiral molecules at an air-water interface was investigated theoretically, and a forming mechanism of chiral structure as an assembly of achiral molecules was argued. A model of such monolayers was constructed taking into account the short-range repulsive interaction between constituent banana-shaped achiral molecules, and the free energy density functional of the model was derived as a generalization of Williams-Bragg approach. It was predicted that chiral symmetry breaking occurs by monolayer compression, where two-dimensional characteristics of monolayers at an interface plays an important role in the formation of chiral structure by banana-shaped achiral molecules.
Yamamoto
Tetsuya
T
Department of Physical Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 S3-33 O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan.
Manaka
Takaaki
T
Taguchi
Dai
D
Iwamoto
Mitsumasa
M