Study on the Dynamics in the Low Temperature Region of the SmC_α^* Phase by Nonlinear Dielectric Spectroscopy

Abstract

Nonlinear dielectric measurement has been performed in the low temperature region of the SmC_α^* phase of an antiferroelectric liquid crystal MHPOCBC. It was found that with decreasing temperature from the transition point in SmC_α^* the relaxation frequency of the amplitude mode first increased in the high temperature region, and then decreased and increased again in the low temperature region. Moreover, we made the nonlinear dielectric measurement under dc fields in the temperature region and observed that a low frequency mode became soft. This may be the pretransitional phenomenon of the transition to the intermediate phase.