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Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Measuring Magnetically-Tuned Ferroelectric Polarization in Liquid Crystals
Published on: August 15, 2018
Solitons induced by alternating electric fields in surface-stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystals
W Jeżewski1, W Kuczyński, J Hoffmann
1Institute of Molecular Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Smoluchowskiego 17, 60-179 Poznań, Poland. jezewski@ifmpan.poznan.pl
Abstract:
Propagation of solitary waves activated in thin ferroelectric liquid crystal cells under external, sinusoidally alternating electric fields is investigated using the electro-optic technique. It is shown that solitons give contributions only to the loss component of the response spectrum, within rather narrow ranges of frequencies and in sufficiently strong fields. The limit frequency, at which the amplitude of the velocity of the solitary waves is greatest, is found to be related to material constants of liquid crystals. Measuring this threshold frequency provides the capability to determine the elastic constant of surface stabilized liquid crystalline materials in the bookshelf or chevron layer geometries.
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