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Updated: May 25, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Sequence of four orthogonal smectic phases in an achiral bent-core liquid crystal: evidence for the SmAP(α) phase
Y P Panarin1, M Nagaraj, S Sreenilayam
1Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Abstract:
The mesomorphic properties of an achiral bent-core liquid crystal derived from 4-cyanoresorcinol are studied by polarizing optical microscopy, x-ray diffraction, and second harmonic electro-optic response. It shows a novel sequence of four nontilted or orthogonal smectic phases on cooling: SmA-SmAP(R)-SmAP(X)-SmAP(A). Here SmAP(X) is the new orthogonal polar uniaxial smectic phase. The electric-field-induced transformations in the SmAP(X) phase give rise to two biaxial states separated by a uniaxial one. The second harmonic electro-optic response in this phase is interpreted in terms of the polar interaction with the electric field. A comparison of the experimental results with the next-nearest-neighbor model for the structure of the SmAP(X) phase shows it to be an SmAP(α) phase.
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