Field-induced switching between states of opposite chirality in a liquid-crystalline phase.
A tilted smectic phase of a new achiral banana-shaped mesogen is presented. It possesses liquidlike order within the layers and appears with a fan-shaped texture. At sufficiently high electric fields, this texture can be transformed into a texture that displays a complete extinction between crossed polarizers and it forms randomly distributed chiral domains. Above a threshold these domains can be reversibly switched into a state of opposite handedness.
Eremin
A
A
Institut für Physikalische Chemie, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Mühlpforte 1, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany.
Diele
S
S
Pelzl
G
G
Weissflog
W
W