title: Structure of the liquid-crystal ferrielectric phases as determined by ellipsometry
abstract: The unit cell structures of two ferrielectric liquid-crystal phases are determined from ellipsometric studies of freestanding films in a nondistorting rotatable electric field. A highly biaxial mode with out-of-plane distortions describes all of the data from two different compounds. Qualitative and quantitative features of the data rule out alternate models. We also present a detailed explanation for apparent inconsistencies between previous resonant x-ray and optical experiments.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Olson
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pankratz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Goodby
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hird
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Huang