Unexpected electric-field-induced antiferroelectric liquid crystal phase in the SmCα* temperature range and the discrete flexoelectric effect
| Autor: | Yoichi Takanishi, Neelam Yadav, Mikhail A. Osipov, Jagdish K. Vij, Atsuo Fukuda, A. D. L. Chandani Perera, Atsuo Iida |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Physical Review E. 100 |
| ISSN: | 2470-0053 2470-0045 |
| Popis: | The unique nanometer-sized helical structure in SmC_{α}^{*} may sometimes evolve continuously to the micrometer-sized one in SmC^{*}; conceivably ferroelectric SmC_{α}^{*} is to be unwound by an applied electric field. By drawing electric-field-induced birefringence contours in the field-temperature phase diagram and by studying the superlattice structure of the field-induced subphase with resonant x-ray scattering, we established that an applied field unexpectedly stabilizes the well-known antiferroelectric four-layer biaxial subphase as well as the other prototypal ferrielectric three-layer one in the SmC_{α}^{*} temperature range; the effective long-range interlayer interaction due to the discrete flexoelectric effect actually plays an important role in stabilizing not only the biaxial subphases but also the optically uniaxial SmC_{α}^{*} subphase, contrary to the notion that the competition between the direct interactions of the nearest-neighbor layers and those of the next-nearest-neighbor layers should be required for the nanometer-sized helical structure. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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