Physical properties and alignment of a polymer-monomer ferroelectric liquid crystal mixture

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Abstract
We present a new Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal (FLC) siloxane-based polymer which exhibits complete miscibility with the low molecular weight FLC (4'[(S)-(4-methylhexyl)oxy]phenyl-4-(decyloxy)benzoate). The mixture exhibits an alignment transition, orienting with the smectic layers along the rubbing direction at high polymer concentrations and, typical of low molecular weight liquid crystals, normal to the rubbing direction at low polymer concentrations. The aligned mixture exhibits high contrast electro-optic switching and has been physically characterized with respect to the sign and magnitude of the ferroelectric polarization and its temperature dependence, temperature variation of optical tilt angle and the optical response to an applied electric field