Dielectric behaviour of the relaxational modes in a ferroelectric liquid crystal

Abstract
The dielectric response in 2-hydroxy-4-decyloxybenzilidene-4′-(2S-2-chloro-3-methylbutyloxy) aniline, a ferroelectric liquid crystal which shows a C-Sc*-SA-I phase transition sequence has been determined. The influence of a bias electric field, applied parallel to the smectic layers, on the parameters that characterize the contributions of the different modes to this response has been analysed. In addition to the soft mode and Goldstone mode contributions we have observed a low frequency relaxation mechanism which could be related to the defect structure present in samples with planar alignment. Moreover, the deconvolution process has allowed us to characterize the soft mode in the ferroelectric phase without unwinding the helical structure.

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