Rigid-body rotation of cholesteric double twist cylinders under a heat flux

Abstract

We fabricated cholesteric (Ch) double twist cylinder (DTC)-aggregates coexisting with its isotropic phase and investigated the size dependence of the unidirectional rigid-body rotation of DTC-aggregates. In experiment, the angular velocity of the DTC-aggregates is proportional to the height and inversely proportional to the square of the radius, which agrees with our phenomenological model. The cross-coupling constant between the heat flux and the torque for DTC-aggregates is approximately identical with the reported value for director rotation. Thus, we concluded that the heat-driven torque on director is efficiently converted to the torque for rigid-body rotation of DTC-aggregates.