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Orientational Order Of A Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal With Small Layer Contraction, Rafal Korlacki, Vitaly P. Panov, Atsuo Fukuda, Jagdish K. Vij, Christopher M. Spillmann, Jawad Naciri

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We present spectroscopic and optical studies of a non-layer-shrinkage ferroelectric liquid crystal DSiKN65. The orientational order parameters S, measured with respect to the smectic layer normal using IR spectroscopy on a sample aligned homeotropically, does not exhibit any significant variation between the smectic-A* and smectic-C* phases. In contrast the birefringence of a planar homogenous sample abruptly increases at the smectic-A* to smectic-C* transition. This suggests a general increase in the orientational order, which can be described by the orientational order parameters S' defined with respect to the director. Simultaneous increase of S' and the director …