title: Field-induced switching between states of opposite chirality in a liquid-crystalline phase.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Physikalische Chemie, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Mühlpforte 1, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Eremin
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Diele
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pelzl
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Weissflog