Frustration between ferro- and antiferroelectric states in the smectic phase of bent-core liquid crystals

Abstract

The electrooptical properties of achiral bent-core materials have been studied extensively and it was found that the smectic B2 phase is antiferroelectric. Recently, it was reported that the chiral bent-core material P8OPIMB6^* exhibits a tilted smectic phase similar to the B2 phase but ferroelectric. In the mixture of an antiferroelectric bent-core material P8OPIMB and the ferroelectric P8OPIMB6^*, antiferroelectric and ferroelectric domains coexisted in thin cells. Based on dielectric measurement and texture observation, we conclude that the ferroelectfic state and antiferroelectric state have almost the same stability in the mixture.