Unidirectional heat transport driven by rotating cholesteric droplets

When a cholesteric liquid crystal (LC) is submitted to a thermal gradient, it exhibits continuous director rotation. The phenomenon is called the Lehmann effect and is understood as a thermomechanical coupling in chiral LCs without mirror symmetry. Since the Lehmann effect is considered to possess time-reversal symmetry, one can expect the inverse process, i.e., rotating chiral LCs to pump heat along the rotational axis. We report the first observation of heat transport driven by rotating cholesteric droplets. This result suggests a new function of the cholesterics as a micro heat pump.