Noel A. Clark

TL;DR: Ferroelectric smectic C (FSC) liquid crystals are used in a simple new geometry that allows the spontaneous formation of either of two surface-stabilized smective C monodomains of opposite ferroelectric polarization as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: A smectic liquid-crystal phase made from achiral molecules with bent cores was found to have fluid layers that exhibit two spontaneous symmetry-breaking instabilities: polar molecular orientational ordering about the layer normal and molecular tilt.

TL;DR: Mise en evidence de the structure par des etudes de diffusion de rayons X haute resolution d'echantillons minces smectiques C prepares entre deux lames solides par refroidissement a partir de the phase smectique A.

TL;DR: Absence of a lamellar X-ray reflection at wavevector q ∼ 2π/d or its harmonics in synchrotron-based scattering experiments indicates that this periodic structure is achieved with no detectable associated modulation of the electron density, and thus has nematic rather than smectic molecular ordering.

TL;DR: An electro-optical device including a chiral smectic C or H liquid crystal disposed between flat plates treated to enforce molecular orientation parallel to the plates is described in this article, where the plates are spaced by a distance sufficiently small to ensure unwinding of the helix typical in a bulk of the material to form two stable states of the orientation field.