title: Orientational order of a ferroelectric liquid crystal with small layer contraction.
abstract: We present spectroscopic and optical studies of a non-layer-shrinkage ferroelectric liquid crystal DSiKN65. The orientational order parameters S, measured with respect to the smectic layer normal using IR spectroscopy on a sample aligned homeotropically, does not exhibit any significant variation between the smectic-A∗ and smectic-C∗ phases. In contrast the birefringence of a planar homogenous sample abruptly increases at the smectic-A∗ to smectic-C∗ transition. This suggests a general increase in the orientational order, which can be described by the orientational order parameters S' defined with respect to the director. Simultaneous increase of S' and the director tilt Θ may explain the low shrinkage of smectic layers, which is consistent with recent theoretical models describing the smectic-A∗ to smectic-C∗ transition for such materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy and The Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA.
authors.forename: Rafał
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Korlacki
authors.forename: Vitaly P
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Panov
authors.forename: Atsuo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fukuda
authors.forename: Jagdish K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Vij
authors.forename: Christopher M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Spillmann
authors.forename: Jawad
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Naciri
mesh_terms: D004560:Electricity; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D055620:Optical Phenomena; D013055:Spectrophotometry, Infrared; D013696:Temperature