Study of the structure and switching behavior of the frustrated smectic phase in the achiral dimev liquid crystal compounds

Abstract

Recently it was reported that some kinds of achiral banana-shaped molecules show (anti-) ferroelectricity, and this field becomes more attractive. We studied structure and switching behavior in dimer achiral liquid crystals with a alkylene spacer, mOAM5AMOm. These homologous compounds show the dependence of the phase structure on terminal alkyl chain length; in 8OAM5AMO8, a frustrated layer structure appears. We observed this dimer molecules switch with respect to the field by texture observation. Moreover, we measured the local layer structure in this phase with and without a filed by using a X-ray microbeam, and concluded that this frustrated structure was kept even when an electric field was applied.