Electrooptical effect of .ALPHA.-olefinic smectic liquid crystals.

Triply periodic smectic liquid crystals.

Twist-grain-boundary phases in smectics are the geometrical analogs of the Abrikosov flux lattice in superconductors. At large twist angles, the nonlinear elasticity is important in evaluating their energetics. We analytically construct the height function of a pi2 twist-grain-boundary phase in smectic-A liquid crystals, known as Schnerk's first surface. This construction, utilizing elliptic fu...

Electroclinic effect and modulated phases in smectic liquid crystals.

We explore the possibility that the unusually large electroclinic effect observed in the smectic-A phase of a ferroelectric liquid crystal arises from the presence of an ordered array of disclination lines and walls in a smectic-C* phase. If the spacing of these defects is in the subvisible range, this modulated smectic-C* phase would be similar macroscopically to a smectic-A phase. The applica...

Ferroelectric ordering and electroclinic effect in chiral smectic liquid crystals.

Ferroelectric ordering, the electroclinic effect, and chiral smectic C(SmC*)-smectic A phase transitions in thin planar ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) cells are studied by means of linear electro-optic and second harmonic generation (SHG) techniques. The ferroelectric switching is detected in biased FLC cells by measuring azimuthal dependences of linear and nonlinear responses. The applied ...

New electromechanical effect in chiral smectic C* liquid crystals

Smectic phases in ionic liquid crystals

Ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) are anisotropic mesogenic molecules which carry charges and therefore combine properties of liquid crystals, e.g. the formation of mesophases, and of ionic liquids, such as low melting temperatures and tiny triple-point pressures. Previous density functional calculations have revealed that the phase behavior of ILCs is strongly affected by their molecular properties...