Unexpected electric-field-induced antiferroelectric liquid crystal phase in the SmC_{α}
Phys Rev E
; 100(1-1): 010701, 2019 Jul.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31499900
ABSTRACT
The unique nanometer-sized helical structure in SmC_{α}^{*} may sometimes evolve continuously to the micrometer-sized one in SmC^{*}; conceivably ferroelectric SmC_{α}^{*} is to be unwound by an applied electric field. By drawing electric-field-induced birefringence contours in the field-temperature phase diagram and by studying the superlattice structure of the field-induced subphase with resonant x-ray scattering, we established that an applied field unexpectedly stabilizes the well-known antiferroelectric four-layer biaxial subphase as well as the other prototypal ferrielectric three-layer one in the SmC_{α}^{*} temperature range; the effective long-range interlayer interaction due to the discrete flexoelectric effect actually plays an important role in stabilizing not only the biaxial subphases but also the optically uniaxial SmC_{α}^{*} subphase, contrary to the notion that the competition between the direct interactions of the nearest-neighbor layers and those of the next-nearest-neighbor layers should be required for the nanometer-sized helical structure.
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1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Phys Rev E
Año:
2019
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Japón