We have studied the temperature dependence of two low-frequency dielectric relaxation modes in a surface-stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal (SSFLC): space charge accumulation and X modes. From investigation of Cole-Cole plots the temperature dependence of dielectric strength and relaxation frequency ω r for the two low-frequency modes was obtained. The relaxation frequency follows the Arrhenius relation in the respective asymptotic regions far from the phase transition temperatures. From the Arrhenius plots the activation energies for the space charge accumulation mode and the X-mode were obtained as 0.42 eV and 0.13 eV, respectively. Temperature dependence of rotational viscosity in the smectic C * (SmC * ) phase conformed with the temperature dependence of the X-mode parameters in the effective Debye relaxation regime, which implicates a common origin of azimuthal molecular rotation for both the Goldstone mode and the X-mode. However, the X-mode is irrelevant to the symmetry breaking phase transition and continues to be observed at all temperatures far from the phase transition.
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