Orientational order of a ferroelectric liquid crystal with small layer contraction

Authors

Rafal Korlacki, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Vitaly P. Panov, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Atsuo Fukuda, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Jagdish K. Vij, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Christopher M. Spillmann, Naval Research Laboratory
Jawad Naciri, Naval Research Laboratory

Date of this Version

2010

Citation

Physical Review E 82, 031702 (2010)

https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.82.031702

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.82.031702

Comments

Copyright 2010 by the American Physical Society

Abstract

We present spectroscopic and optical studies of a non-layer-shrinkage ferroelectric liquid crystal DSiKN65. The orientational order parameters S, measured with respect to the smectic layer normal using IR spectroscopy on a sample aligned homeotropically, does not exhibit any significant variation between the smectic-A* and smectic-C* phases. In contrast the birefringence of a planar homogenous sample abruptly increases at the smectic-A* to smectic-C* transition. This suggests a general increase in the orientational order, which can be described by the orientational order parameters S' defined with respect to the director. Simultaneous increase of S' and the director tilt θ may explain the low shrinkage of smectic layers, which is consistent with recent theoretical models describing the smectic-A* to smectic-C* transition for such materials.