Liquid crystals (LCs) represent one of the foundations of modern communication and photonic technologies. Present display technologies are based mainly on nematic LCs, which suffer from limited response time for use in active colour sequential displays and limited image grey scale. Herein we report the first observation of a spontaneously formed helix in a polar tilted smectic LC phase (SmC phase) of achiral bent-core (BC) molecules with the axis of helix lying parallel to the layer normal and a pitch much shorter than the optical wavelength. This new phase shows fast (∼30 μs) grey-scale switching due to the deformation of the helix by the electric field. Even more importantly, defect-free alignment is easily achieved for the first time for a BC mesogen, thus providing potential use in large-scale devices with fast linear and thresholdless electro-optical response.
Flexoelectricity in a bimesogenic liquid crystal exhibiting the Ntb phase is higher than that in bimesogens without it. The N–Ntb interface shows a new periodic self-assembly pattern.
Alkyl substituted 4-cyanoresorcinol 1,3-bisbenzoates with terephthalate based rod-like wings show a series of three orthogonal smectic phases SmA-SmAP(R)-SmAP(A).
The second- and fourth-order apparent orientational order parameters of the core part of the molecule P2 (app) and P4 (app) , have been measured by polarized vibrational Raman spectroscopy for a homogeneously aligned ferroelectric smectic liquid crystal with three dimethyl siloxane groups in the achiral terminal chain, which shows de Vries-type phenomena, i.e., very large electroclinic effect in the smectic- A (Sm-A) phase and a negligible layer contraction at the phase transition between the Sm-A and Sm- C(*) phases. The apparent orientational order parameters of the rigid core part of the molecule are extremely small both with and without the external electric field in Sm-A . These results provide evidence for the existence of the de Vries Sm-A phase, where the local molecular director is tilted at a large angle.
We report the observation of a biaxial nematic phase in a bent-core molecular system using polarizing microscopy, electro-optics, and dielectric spectroscopy, where we find that the biaxiality exists on a microscopic scale. An application of electric field induces a macroscopic biaxiality and in consequence gives rise to electro-optic switching. This electro-optic effect shows significant potential in applications for displays due to its fast high-contrast response. The observed electro-optic switching is explained in terms of the interaction of the ferroelectric clusters with the electric field.
Mixtures of different compositions of an antiferroelectric liquid crystal compound that exhibits direct smectic-A*(Sm-A*)-smectic-C*(A) (Sm-C*(A)) transition with a ferroelectric liquid crystal compound that exhibits Sm-A*-smectic-C*(Sm-C*) transition are studied using electro-optics and dielectric spectroscopy. The results of optical texture, birefringence, and the tilt angle suggest that a part of the Sm-A* phase is of de Vries type, since an increase in the tilt angle with decreasing temperature results in a reduction in the value of the birefringence in the Sm-A* phase, whereas the birefringence at Sm-A* to Sm-C* transition goes up by 12.7%. The soft mode relaxation strength, the Landau coefficient of the temperature dependent term, and the other related parameters of the de Vries-type Sm-A-Sm-C*(A) and Sm-A*-Sm-C* transitions are determined using the Landau theory of the second-order phase transition. For the Sm-A*-Sm-C* transition, we find that the soft mode relaxation strength decreases, the Landau coefficient increases, and the Curie-Weiss temperature range decreases with an increased ferroelectric composition in the mixture. These observations can be explained by assuming that with increased ferroelectric composition in the mixture, the layer shrinkage at the de Vries Sm-A*-Sm-C* transition increases. On comparing the results of de Vries-type Sm-A* to Sm-C*(A) and Sm-C* transitions, we find that the soft mode dielectric strength and the other related Landau parameters of the de Vries Sm-A* phase are of the same order of magnitude for transitions from Sm-A* to Sm-C* and to Sm-C*(A) except for the composition of the mixture where both Sm-C* and Sm-C*(A) transitions are stable and the phase diagram shows phase sequence Sm-A* to Sm-C* to Sm-C*(A).
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