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We study the chiral symmetry breaking and metastability of confined nematiclyotropic chromonic liquid crystal (LCLC) with and without chiral dopants. Theisotropic-nematic coexistence phase of the LCLC renders two confininggeometries: sessile isotropic(I) droplets surrounded by the nematic(N) phaseand sessile nematic droplets immersed in the isotropic background. In theachiral system with no dopants, LCLC's elastic anisotropy and topologicaldefects induce a spontaneous twist deformation to lower the energetic penaltyof splay deformation, resulting in spiral optical textures under crossedpolarizers both in the I-in-N and N-in-I systems. While the achiral systemexhibits both handednesses with an equal probability, a small amount of thechiral dopant breaks the balance. Notably, in contrast to the homochiralconfiguration of a chirally doped LCLC in bulk, the spiral texture of thedisfavored handedness appears with a finite probability both in the I-in-N andN-in-I systems. We propose director field models explaining how chiral symmetrybreaking arises by the energetics and the opposite-twist configurations existas meta-stable structures in the energy landscape. These findings help uscreate and control chiral structures using confined LCs with large elasticanisotropy.

Confinement twists achiral liquid crystals and causes chiral liquid  crystals to twist in the opposite handedness: Cases in and around sessile  droplets