title: Optical investigations on the biaxial smectic- A phase of a bent-core compound.
abstract: Several unique optical properties have been obtained from freestanding films of a bent-core compound. Our experimental results indicate the existence of the antiferroelectric biaxial smectic-A (Sm A) phase. The critical exponent associated with the biaxiality through the uniaxial-antiferroelectric biaxial Sm A transition has been measured to be 0.82+/-0.04 , which is in good agreement with our theoretical calculation. Our theoretical advances further demonstrate that the critical behavior of the optical biaxiality with the order parameter being a vector is described by the secondary-order parameter of the three-dimensional XY model. We also observe a remarkable even-odd layering effect exhibited by the surface layers of freestanding films under an applied electric field (approximately 20 V/cm) in the film plane.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: X F
authors.initials: XF
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cady
authors.forename: Z Q
authors.initials: ZQ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kamenev
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Glazman
authors.forename: B K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Sadashiva
authors.forename: R Amaranatha
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Reddy
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Huang