Re-entrant ferroelectricity in liquid crystals

Abstract

The ferroelectric (Sm C${}^{\ast }$) -- antiferroelectric (Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$) -- reentrant ferroelectric (re Sm C${}^{\ast }$) phase temperature sequence was observed for system with competing synclinic - anticlinic interactions. The basic properties of this system are as follows (1) the Sm C${}^{\ast }$ phase is metastable in temperature range of the Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$ stability (2) the double inversions of the helix handedness at Sm C${}^{\ast }$ -- Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$ and Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$% -- re-Sm C${}^{\ast }$ phase transitions were found (3) the threshold electric field that is necessary to induce synclinic ordering in the Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$ phase decreases near both Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$ -- Sm C${}^{\ast }$ and Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$ -- re-Sm C${}^{\ast }$ phase boundaries, and it has maximum in the middle of the Sm C${}_A^{\ast }$ stability region. All these properties are properly described by simple Landau model that accounts for nearest neighboring layer steric interactions and quadrupolar ordering only.

10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRL

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Flexoelectricity and piezoelectricity - reason for rich variety of phases in antiferroelectric liquid crystals
• Phase Transitions Patterns in Relativistic and Nonrelativistic Multi-Scalar-Field Models
• Entropy-driven enhanced self-diffusion in confined reentrant supernematics
• Effect of optical purity on phase sequence in antiferroelectric liquid crystals
• The role of string-like, supramolecular assemblies in reentrant supernematic liquid crystals