Switching of banana liquid crystal mesophases under field |
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Authors: | MF Achard JPh Bedel JP Marcerou HT Nguyen JC Rouillon |
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Institution: | (1) Centre de Recherches Paul Pascal, 115 Av. A. Schweitzer, 3360 Pessac, France, FR |
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Abstract: | Taking advantage of the great number of bent-core or “banana" compounds synthesized and studied in the laboratory, we describe
their behaviour under the application of an external electric field. If the field were a static one, we would work within
the frame of an equilibrium phase diagram in a (field E, temperature T) space where some phases would be simple dielectrics and others ferroelectric ones with a macroscopic polarization, either
spontaneous or induced by the field. In this paper, we deal with the basic responses of “banana” liquid crystals under the
application of a low frequency (1 to 100 Hz) AC field. Firstly square-wave voltages allow us to locate the phase boundary
between dielectric (at lower field) and ferroelectric phases (higher field) at a given temperature and field threshold. Then
we apply slowly varying AC voltages with shapes like triangle or “triple-plateau” to check out the stability of the induced
ferroelectric phase versus field removal. Three behaviours are encountered, the unstable one (short lifetime of the high-field ferroelectric phase)
where the macroscopic polarization is destroyed and then rebuilt in the opposite direction during each half period and usually
called “antiferroelectric”; the stable one (long lifetime) with a polarization that rotates at constant modulus which is labeled
as “ferroelectric” and a new one where the macroscopic polarization is proportional to the applied fied, we named this behaviour
as “superparaelectric”. Let us stress that these observations apply to the ferroelectric phases of the (E, T) phase diagram not to the zero field (0,T) phases observed in the usual phase characterization experiments except for an
eventual spontaneous ferroelectric phase.
Received 18 April 2002 and Received in final form 17 January 2003 Published online: 16 April 2003
RID="a"
ID="a"e-mail: marcerou@crpp.u-bordeaux.fr
RID="b"
ID="b"URL: http://www.crpp-bordeaux.cnrs.fr |
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Keywords: | PACS 61 30 -v Liquid crystals – 61 30 Gd Orientational order of liquid crystals electric and magnetic field effects on order – 77 84 Nh Liquids emulsions and suspensions liquid crystals |
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