Helicoid-Stabilized Tristable Switching in Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Mixtures with Ultrashort Pitch

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Abstract
Antiferroelectric-like tristable switching was observed in smectic liquid crystal mixtures containing chiral dopants derived from trifluoromethylated pyranose. The results of transmittance measurement with obliquely incident light clearly indicate that the phase showing the tristable switching is not antiferroelectric but ferroelectric. The helicoidal pitch quadratically changes with the amount of dopant and seems to attain about 50 nm in the mixtures with a dopant content of more than 40 wt%. The quadratic dependence originates from the flexoelectric effect with negligible inter-molecular chiral interaction. Mechanisms for the tristable switching are proposed on the basis of the ultrashort pitch.