| Abstract: | We report a smectic liquid crystal in which a tilt of the molecular orientation away from the layer normal in the Smectic C phase of up to 24 occurs with minimal layer contraction. This characteristic, accompanied by an exceptionally large underlying negative thermal layer expansion coefficient, enables the formation of chiral smectic electro-optical cells having nearly the ideal 'bookshelf' layer geometry, free from the complexities of the chevron layer structure produced by contraction. |
