Emergent Ferroelectric Nematic and Heliconical Ferroelectric Nematic States in an Achiral “Straight” Polar Rod Mesogen (Adv. Sci. 39/2024)

Heliconical Ferroelectric Nematic Phase The heliconical ferroelectric nematic phase is a new helielectric state that spontaneously satisfies both polar and chiral symmetry breaking. In article number 2405718 Hiroya Nishikawa, Fumito Araoka, and co-workers realize the heliconical arrangement of “straight”, “rigid”, and “achiral” polar molecules in the ferroelectric nematic phase. This finding suggests that even straight achiral rod mesogen can induce left- or right-handed twisted dipole structures through electric dipole interactions, resulting in chiral symmetry breaking.