title: Electric-field-induced chirality flipping in smectic liquid crystals: the role of anisotropic viscosity.
abstract: We demonstrate the homogeneous and permanent reversal of the chirality of a condensed phase by an applied electric field. Tilted chiral smectic layers exhibit a coupled polarization density and molecular orientation fields which reorient about the layer normal as couple of fixed handedness in response to small applied electric fields. Experiments on some bent-core smectics show that above a threshold field the induced rotation can occur instead about the molecular long axis and that, as a result, the handedness of the phase can be flipped. The effect is quantitatively described by a nonequilibrium dissipative model of chiral smectic dynamics with anisotropic rotational viscosities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nakata
authors.forename: R-F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Maclennan
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Weissflog
authors.forename: N A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Clark