Introduction to Antiferroelectrics

This situation changed dramatically in 1996 with the discovery of strong electro-optic (EO) activity in smectics composed of bent-core, bowshaped, or banana-shaped achiral molecules.4 Since then, the banana-phases exhibited by such compounds have been shown to possess a rich supermolecular stereochemistry, with examples of both macroscopic racemates and conglomerates represented. Indeed, the chiral banana phases formed from achiral or racemic compounds represent the first known bulk fluid conglomerates, identified 150 years after the discovery of their organic crystalline counterparts by Pasteur. A brief introduction to LCs as supermolecular self-assemblies, and in particular SmC ferroelectric and SmCA antiferroelectric LCs, followed by a snapshot of the rapidly evolving banana-phase stereochemistry story, is presented here. 

As is obvious from the table, Tc is almost doubled upon deuteration. These isotope effects are one of the largest observed in any solid state system. The question arises about isotope effects in non-hydrogen-bonded ferro- and antiferroelectrics. As already mentioned in the Introduction, within a mean-field scheme and in a purely ionic model it was predicted that these systems should not exhibit any isotope effect in the classical limit, which has been verified experimentally. Correspondingly, there was not much effort to look for these effects here. However, using a nonlinear shell-model representation it was predicted that in the quantum limit an isotope effect should... 

Liquid crystal ferri and antiferroelectrics have many features discovered for years of comprehensive studies of corresponding crystalline substances. Thus, it would be convenient and instructive to begin with a short introduction in the structure and properties of antiferroelectric crystals. A difference between ferro-, ferri and antiferroelectrics is schematically shown in Fig. 13.15, where the three very simplified... 

Liquid crystal molecules usually tilt in the same direction over the smectic layers (synclinic [212]) in the smectic C (SmC) phase. However, in one of the smectic A (SmA) phases, called de-Vries phase [213,214], molecules tilt but the tile direction is random so that the overall molecular tilt cannot be recognized optically. Frustration can be produced between aligning and random orders [215]. There is another style of tilt, in which the tilting direction is aligning in one direction in each smectic layer however, tilting direction alternates between the adjacent layers (anticlinic [212]). It has been well known that the introduction of chirality into the synclinic and anticlinic stmctures produces the ferroelectric and antiferroelectric properties, respectively. Frustration between the ferroelectric and antiferroelectric properties produces the ferroelectric structure in which the spontaneous polarization is partially canceled by the different magnitude between plus and minus polarization directions [216, 217]. The anticlinic order, NOT the antiferroelectric order, has been reported to be created by achiral systems [218, 219], indicating that the frustration between synclinic and anticlinic structures occurs, without any polar effects. The clinicity is determined by the style of the molecular order between the adjacent smectic layers, and therefore, the molecular structures at the peripheral... 

---