Abstract

One of the most important problems of ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) is their difficulty in obtaining homogeneous as well as bistable alignment. Concerning this problem, Clark et al. recently clarified that the FLCs generally have a chevron structure, that is, a bend structure of the smectic layer, which causes formation of the zigzag domain and an undesirable decrease of the azimuth angle between bistable orientational directions.

© 1988 Optical Society of America