Chiral interactions and structures

The chiral structure of liquid crystalline phases arises due to the intrins ic chirality of the constituent mesogens. While it is seemingly straightfor ward to quantify the macroscopic chirality by using, for instance, the chol esteric pitch or the optical rotatory power, it is not as simple to quantif y the chirality of a single molecule. I will discuss a systematic quantific ation of molecular chirality and show how the resulting chiral: parameters may be used to predict macroscopic chiral structure.