Title: Theory of Chiral Order in Polymers, Liquid Crystals, and
Lipid Microstructures

Speaker:  Professor Jonathan Selinger, Kent University

Abstract: The importance of chirality, or molecular handedness, has
long been recognized in many areas of physics and chemistry.  It is
well known, for example, that the interactions between chiral
molecules change dramatically when one molecule is replaced by its
mirror image.  This chiral specificity is the basis of a major
industry producing chiral drugs.  In recent years, researchers have
found that chirality is not just a static characteristic of individual
molecules; rather, it can be a thermodynamic quantity describing the
order of macromolecular and supramolecular aggregates.  In this talk,
we discuss large-scale chiral order in three systems: helical
polymers, bent-core liquid crystals, and self-assembled lipid tubules.
We show that the concept of chiral order provides an approach for
understanding the structure of these materials and controlling them
for technological applications.