Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals a Unique State of Matter

Columnar liquid crystal as a unique ferroelectric liquid crystal

Maier-Saupe-type theory of ferroelectric nanoparticles in nematic liquid crystals.

Several experiments have reported that ferroelectric nanoparticles have drastic effects on nematic liquid crystals-increasing the isotropic-nematic transition temperature by about 5 K, and greatly increasing the sensitivity to applied electric fields. In a recent paper [Lopatina and Selinger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 197802 (2009)], we modeled these effects through a Landau theory, based on couple...

Dynamics of the molecular orientation field coupled to ions in two-dimensional ferroelectric liquid crystals.

Molecular orientation fluctuations in ferroelectric smectic liquid crystals produce space charges, due to the divergence of the spontaneous polarization. These space charges interact with mobile ions, so that one must consider the coupled dynamics of the orientation and ionic degrees of freedom. Previous theory and light scattering experiments on thin free-standing films of ferroelectric liquid...

Piezoelectricity of a ferroelectric liquid crystal with a glass transition.

Pressure-electric (hydrostatic piezoelectric) measurements are reported on bookshelf textures of a ferroelectric smectic-C (Sm C*) liquid crystal with a glass transition. The continuous variation of a partially fluid state to the solid glass enables one to trace how the piezoelectric effect depends on the consistency of the material. It was observed that in the Sm C* samples with poled glass th...

A Review of Polymer-Stabilized Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals

The polymer stabilized state of ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLC) is reviewed; and the effect of a dispersed polymer network in an FLC outlined and discussed. All fundamental material aspects are demonstrated; such as director tilt angle; spontaneous polarization; response time and viscosity; as well as the dielectric modes. It was found that the data can largely be explained by assuming an e...