Achiral building blocks forming achiral structures is a common occurrence in nature, while chirality emerging spontaneously from an achiral system is usually associated with important scientific phenomena. We report on the spontaneous chiral symmetry-breaking phenomena upon the topographic confinement of achiral lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals in periodically arranged micrometer scale air pillars. The anisotropic fluid arranges into chiral domains that depend on the arrangement and spacing of the pillars. We characterize the resulting domains by polarized optical microscopy, support their reconstruction by numerical calculations, and extend the findings with experiments, which include chiral dopants. Well-controlled and addressed chiral structures will be useful in potential applications like programmable scaffolds for living liquid crystals and as sensors for detecting chirality at the molecular level.

中文翻译：

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从微模式非手性溶致性发色液晶的自组装产生的手性域的周期性阵列。

在自然界中，形成非手性结构的非手性构件是一种普遍现象，而从非手性系统中自发出现的手性通常与重要的科学现象有关。我们报告了周期性分布的微米级气柱中非手性溶致色团液晶的自发手性对称性破坏现象。各向异性流体排列成取决于柱的排列和间距的手性区域。我们通过偏振光学显微镜表征得到的域，通过数值计算支持它们的重建，并通过包括手性掺杂剂在内的实验扩展发现。