Abstract
We report ellipsometric measurements on freely suspended films of chiral liquid-crystal compounds near their smectic-A - smectic-C transition. The temperature difference between the surface and the bulk transition is found to vary considerably within a homologous series. In two compounds possessing a fluorinated alkyl chain an unexpected sign inversion of the spontaneous polarization in the ferroelectric smectic-C phase is observed which occurs only in thin but not in thick films.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 221-229 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Ferroelectrics |
| Volume | 212 |
| Issue number | 1-4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1998 |
| Event | Proceedings of the 1997 6th International Conference on Ferroelectrics Liquid Crystals. Part 1 (of 3) - Brest, Fr Duration: Jul 20 1997 → Jul 24 1997 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemein-schaft (grant no. Ba1048/5-l), the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie, and National Science Foundation, Solid State Chemistry Program, (grant no. DMR-93-00781). Ch. B. is grateful to the Deutsche Forschungsgemein-schaft for a Heisenberg-Fellowship. We would like to thank Dr. G. Janulis (3M Corporation, St. Paul, MN) for providing the fluorinated 'compounds.