Theory of Chiral Order in Random Copolymers

Abstract

Recent experiments have found that polyisocyanates composed of a mixture of opposite enantiomers follow a chiral “majority rule”: the chiral order of the copolymer, measured by optical activity, is dominated by whichever enantiomer is in the majority. We explain this majority rule theoretically by mapping the random copolymer onto the random-field Ising model. Using this model, we predict the chiral order as a function of enantiomer concentration, in quantitative agreement with the experiments, and show how the sharpness of the majority-rule curve can be controlled.