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Updated: Jul 10, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Structure of a B6-like phase formed from bent-core liquid crystals determined by microbeam x-ray diffraction
Sungmin Kang1, Masatoshi Tokita, Yoichi Takanishi
1Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan.
Abstract:
We studied the structure of the Bx phase formed from the short terminal homolog, 1,3-(4-bromobenzene) bis[4-(4-n-butoxyphenylliminomethyl)benzoate] (4Br-P-4-O-PIMB), by focusing a microbeam of x ray on the well-developed fan-shaped texture. From the highly oriented x-ray patterns detected at the two states of DC-ON and DC-OFF, the Bx structure was definitely illustrated. It is a kind of frustrated one similar to the B1 phase: the molecules lie perpendicularly to the layer, and the frustration takes place perpendicularly to the bent direction. Unlike in the B1 phase, however, the size of the resulting antidomain is not definite, but fluctuates from position to position as observed in the B6 phase.
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