Supramolecular meso-Trick - Ambidextrous Mirror Symmetry Breaking in a Liquid Crystalline Network with Tetragonal Symmetry

Bi- and multi-continuous network phases are among nature's most complex structures in soft matter systems. Here a chiral bicontinuous tetragonal phase is reported as a new stable liquid crystalline intermediate phase at the transition between two cubic phases, the achiral double gyroid and the chiral triple network cubic phase with I23 space group, both formed by dynamic networks of helices. The mirror symmetry of the double gyroid, representing a meso-structure of two enantiomorphic networks, is broken at the transition to this tetragonal phase by retaining uniform helicity only along one network while losing it along the other one. This leads to a conglomerate of enantiomorphic tetragonal space groups, P4₁2₁2 and P4₃2₁2. Phase structures and chirality were analyzed by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS), resonant soft X-ray scattering (RSoXS) at the carbon K-edge and model-dependent SAXS/RSoXS simulation. Our findings not only lead to a new bicontinuous network-type 3D mesophase but also reveals a mechanism of mirror symmetry breaking in soft matter by partial meso-structure racemization at the transition from enantiophilic to enantiophobic interhelical self-assembly.