Polarisation-driven magneto-optical and nonlinear-optical behaviour of a room-temperature ferroelectric nematic phase

Abstract

Nematics with a broken polar symmetry is one of the fascinating recent discoveries in the field of soft matter. High spontaneous polarisation and the fluidity of the ferroelectric nematic $N_{\mathrm{F}}$ phase make such materials attractive for future applications and interesting for fundamental research. Here we explore the polar and mechanical properties of a room-temperature ferroelectric nematic and its behaviour in a magnetic field. We show that $N_{\mathrm{F}}$ is much less susceptible to the splay deformation than to the twist. The strong splay rigidity can be attributed to the electrostatic self-interaction of the polarisation avoiding the polarisation splay.

References in corpus (9)

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Polarization patterning in ferroelectric nematic liquids
• Electric field-induced interfacial instability in a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal
• Viscous Mechano-Electric Response of Ferroelectric Nematic Liquid
• Flexoelectricity versus Electrostatics in Polar Nematic Liquid Crystals
• A molecular perspective on the emergence of long-range polar order from an isotropic fluid
• Topological transition from a hopfion to a toron via flexoelectric self-polarization in chiral liquid crystals
• Polar and apolar light-induced alignment of ferroelectric nematic at photosensitive polymer substrate