Layer Rotation Mechanism in the SmC Phase

This book studies the electroclinic effect and §layer rotations in the chiral smectic C (SmC ) §phase. Although a lot of work has been done on the §general behavior of layer rotation, the mechanism of §layer rotation of the smectic layer has not been §fully understood. Most of the previous work just §show the result of the rotation under specific §conditions. In this work, we propose a model for the §layer rotation of the SmC phase, which is able to §give answers to most of the basic questions about §the layer rotation. First, it is postulated that the §layer rotation is related to the electroclinic §effect. We investigate the electroclinic effect in §the SmC phase, for the first time as far as we §know, with three different experiments. We propose a §mechanism from a system energy point of view and §will explain with our modeling why only asymmetric §waveforms can rotate the layer of the SmC phase. §The basic idea is that an induced asymmetric §probability density of the director for each cycle §of an asymmetric electric waveform is the origin of §the layer rotation. We found that the expected §results from this modeling did not conflict with the §previous work.