Tilted spiral structure

Figure 13. The director pattern for s= A%-tdge disclinations in a chiral nematic. The filled in dots signify that the director is orthogonal to the plane of the figure, the dumbbells that it is in the plane, and the pins that it is tilted in a spiraling structure.

Apart from the triphenylene mentioned in Section 11.2, one other case has been reported where a chiral columnar phase structure manifests itself in an asymmetric texture 2,3,9,10,16,17,23,24-octakis-(5-3,7-dimethyloctyloxy)-phthalocyanine exhibits two columnar phases above room temperature [8], [14]. The one at the higher temperature has a rectangular column lattice, the other a hexagonal one. When cooled quickly from the isotropic liquid, left-handed spirals appear in the flower-like texture of the highly ordered room temperature phase (Figure 11.8). X-ray and circular dichroism measurements indicate a helical superstructure with a pitch of 55 A (a 16 molecules). It seems very probable that in this case the molecules are weakly tilted and that the tilt direction spirals around the column axis, especially because the phase at higher temperatures is rectangular and therefore most probably tilted as well. 

---