Characterization of orientation correlation kinetics: chiral-mesophase domains in suspensions charged DNA-rods
The kinetics of chiral-mesophases and N*-phase, by using a novel image-time correlation technique. Instead of correlating time-lapsed real-space microscopy images, the corresponding Fourier images are shown for time-correlated averaged orientations. This allows to unambiguously distinguish to detect the temporal evolution of orientations on different length scales, such as domain sizes (depending on their relative orientations), and the chiral pitch within the domains.
Kinetic features are qualitatively interpreted in terms of replica symmetry breaking of elastic deformations in the orthogonal directional axes of chiral-mesophase domains, as well by the average twist angle and the order parameter.
Figure: Simple illustrations for the orientation distribution, equilibrated in the actual FT intensities with FT space of domains, increased with an increase of DNA rod-concentration, from 132 μm−1, 176 μm−1, 264 μm−1, to 380 μm-1.
(Published on J. Phys. Commun. 6 (2022) 015001, https://doi.org/10.1088/2399-6528/ac4642)