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Updated: Oct 3, 2026

Measuring Magnetically-Tuned Ferroelectric Polarization in Liquid Crystals
Published on: August 15, 2018
Orientational ordering in the chiral smectic-C*FI2 liquid crystal phase determined by resonant polarized x-ray
1School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
Abstract:
High-resolution resonant polarized x-ray diffraction experiments near the sulfur K edge have been performed on free-standing liquid crystal films exhibiting the chiral smectic-C*FI2 phase. It is widely accepted that this phase has a four-layer repeat unit, but the internal structure of the repeat unit remains controversial. We report different resolved features of the resonant x-ray diffraction peaks associated with the smectic-C*FI2 phase that unambiguously demonstrate that the four-layer repeat unit is locally biaxial about the layer normal and that the measured angle, describing the biaxiality, is in good agreement with optical measurements.
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