Self-Recovery from Alignment Damage under AC Fields in Antiferroelectric and Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Cells

Abstract
Alignment recovery from damage has been confirmed to occur under an AC electric field, e.g., 30 Vpp·µm-1, in antiferroelectric chiral smectic liquid crystal cells of MHPOBC and a related fluorinated compound. The recovery partly results from internal shearing produced by reversible layer switching between bookshelf and quasi-bookshelf. Contrary to the widely accepted notion, even in a ferroelectric liquid crystal cell of a compound similar to MHPOBC, reversible layer deformation due to an electric field has been observed from X-ray diffraction and a similar alignment recovery from damage has also been confirmed to occur.