CALCULATING THE HELICAL TWISTING POWER OF DOPANTS IN A LIQUID-CRYSTAL BY COMPUTER-SIMULATION

The helical twisting Power determines the pitch of the helical structure produced by introducing a given concentration of chiral dopant molecules to a nematic liquid-crystal phase. By using alternative, twisted, periodic boundary conditions, and measuring the relative chemical potentials of right- and left-handed dopants in a twisted nematic phase, we have succeeded in measuring this property by computer simulation of a simple molecular model. The technique should be generally applicable.