Chiral symmetry breaking in crystals of achiral polymers

Abstract

Many achiral polymers crystallize into spherulites with gigantic chirality, as is evident from spectacular images of periodic banding observed in a polarized optical microscope, arising from the twisting of the lamellae making up the spherulites. We present a new mechanism of the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, by accounting for topological defects in finite crystalline ribbons made of achiral molecules in equilibrium. We show that disclinations stabilize a twisted helicoidal ribbon, with spontaneous selection of its width and chiral period, which are proportional to each other, as a universal law.