Competition between Ferroelectric and Antiferroelectric Interactions Stabilizing Varieties of Phases in Binary Mixtures of Smectic Liquid Crystals

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Abstract
An electric field-temperature (E-T) phase diagram has been drawn for several binary mixtures of antiferroelectric liquid crystals using conoscopic observation. All the possible phases are SmA-SmCα *-SmC*-new antiferroelectric phase-new ferrielectric phase-SmCγ *-new ferrielectric phase-SmCA *, some of which appear in the above regular order. Two Devil's staircases are necessary to elucidate systematic understanding of successive phase transitions among ferroelectric, ferrielectric and antiferroelectric phases: one is a staircase of SmCα *(q T) already discussed by Takanishi et al. and the other is a staircase of SmCA *(q T). Competition between an antiferroelectric interaction responsible for SmCA * and a ferroelectric one for SmC* is considered to stabilize a variety of phases, SmCA *(q T).

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