抄録
Conventional dispersion and steric interactions between mesogenic molecules generally promote SmC^*, while interlayer orientational correlations between transverse molecular dipoles stabilize anticlinic SmC_A^*. Ferroelectric and antiferroelectric orders thus produced are frustrated because of the XY freedom and the low-energy barrier between them. The Casimir type long-range interactions due to the polarization fluctuations can naturally explain not only a series of subphases between SmC_A^* and SmC^* but also the the staircase character of SmC_α^* emerging just below SmA, if we take account of the discrete flexoelectric polarization appropriately in addition to the ordinary one.
