Surface defects, ferroelectric devices

Ferroelectric liquid crystal devices have suffered from a number of characteristic alignment defects which are absent from nematic liquid crystal devices. The most important of these, termed zig-zag defects (from their characteristic shape) result from the chevron structure (Fig. 23). The chevron can form with the layer tilt toward either of the directions perpendicular to the layer planes if there is also a surface pretilt, its direction and that of the layer tilt may... 

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