Fig. 4: Nanoalignement of chiral microparticles.
a Schematic and b brightfield image of a right-handed 2D-chiral microparticle consisting of two overlapping, conjoint together, rectangles with 2.8μm length and 1.8μm height trapped above a right-hand 2D-chiral pattern with the same (slightly smaller) shape and chirality at T ≈ Tc (see Supplementary Video 4). The (barely visible) red trajectory shows that the position of the microparticle is well confined at the pattern. c Angle θ between the particle and the pattern (as indicated in the inset) as a function of time showing that the orientation of the particle is locked within a very narrow angular range. d–f When the same right-handed 2D-chiral microparticle is trapped above the left-handed pattern, there is less confinement both in position (blue trajectory in e) and orientation (panel (f)). g–l Using a left-handed 2D-chiral microparticle leads to similar observations, i.e., it is not strongly confined above a right-handed pattern both in position (h) and orientation (i), but it is well confined above a pattern with matching (left-handed) 2D-chirality both in position (k) and orientation (l). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
