A racemic layer structure in a chiral bent-core ferroelectric liquid crystal

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Abstract
A fluid smectic phase of a chiral bent-core liquid crystal was found to have a ground state structure that is anticlinic in tilt and ferroelectric in polar order, SmCAPF*. The layer chirality of this structure alternates from layer to layer despite their being composed of chiral mesogens. Observations of the optical second harmonic generation signal from well-aligned domains confirm that the ground state of this phase is bistable ferroelectric. In addition to the ground state two types of metastable domains are also observed.