Electroclinic behaviour of polymer doped low molar mass ferroelectric liquid crystals

Recently there has been much interest in the electroclinic effect due to its potential application in high speed optical modulators and grey scale displays. In present materials, however, the electroclinic effect is very dependent on temperature and falls off rapidly with increasing temperature. This limits the useful device operating range. In this paper the electroclinic behaviour of new, side chain polymer doped, low molar mass ferroelectic liquid crystal mixtures is reported. By measuring the rate of change of the electroclinic coefficient with temperature it is shown that the temperature range over which the electroclinic effect exists increases with polymer concentration. Data are also presented on electroclinic response times.