Frustration is a powerful mechanism in condensed matter systems, driving both
order and co plexity. In smectics, the frustration between macroscopic
chirality and equally spaced layers generates textures characterised by a
proliferation of defects. In this article, we study several different ground
states of the chiral Landau-de Gennes free energy for a smectic liquid crystal.
The standard theory finds the twist grain boundary (TGB) phase to be the ground
state for chiral type II smectics. However, for very highly chiral systems, the
hierarchical helical nanofilament (HN) phase can form and is stable over the
TGB.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, submitted to J. Interface Focu
