Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions and Equilibrium Textures of Charged Chiral Rods (fd-Viruses)

Both non-equilibrium phase transitions and equilibrium textures of interacting charged chiral rods are explored, where thick electric double layers are present in the suspensions of charged chiral fibrous (fd) viruses at a low ionic strength. We first start with the electric phase/state diagram, illustrating dynamic frequency responses at the concentration of isotropic-nematic (I-N) coexistence, leading to various field-induced phases/states. As a low frequency response, two sharp transitions of chiral-nematic phases and dynamical states are induced, while as one transition is found to a homeotropic phases that is stabilized at a high-frequency. The characterizations of field-induced phases/states, and critical slowing down behaviors in the non-equilibrium criticality are discussed, by means of image-time correlation, dynamic light scattering and electric birefringence. For the equilibrium phase behaviors, depolarized optical morphology is studied with their texture dynamics, as an increase of rod concentration for a long equilibration time (80-100 h). Structure arrest has been observed by dynamic light scattering, above a glass transition concentration. Below the glass transition concentration, chiral-nematic textures are equilibrated at low, but above the I-N coexistence concentration. At higher, near to the glass transition concentration, another type of the equilibrium is reached as “domain” textures (of the helical domains) . Whether there will be a thermodynamic access of the density in orientational domains in these equilibrated textures in the interaction of charged chiral rods would be an interesting issue