Chiral symmetry breaking in crystal growth: Is hydrodynamic convection relevant?

The effects of mechanical stirring on nucleation and chiral symmetry breaking have been investigated for a simple inorganic molecule, sodium chlorate. In contrast to earlier findings, our experiments suggest that hydrodynamic convection may have little to do with the observed symmetry breaking. Rather the effect can be reasonably accounted for by mechanical damage to incipient crystals. The catastrophic events, creating numerous small “secondary” crystals, produce statistical domination of one chiral species over the other. A number of observations using different mixing methods support this conclusion.