Confinement-driven smectic-A to chiral smectic-C* phase transition

Abstract

The properties of the smectic-A to chiral smectic-C* (SmA-SmC*) phase transition in confinement environment are studied theoretically. The experimental results reveal the novel properties of ferroelectric liquid crystals in confinement situation. We have studied the experimental findings of the SmA-SmC* phase transition in great details within Landau theory. The impact of quenched disorder on the polarization, tilt angle, pitch length and thermodynamic quantities near the SmA-SmC* phase transition is discussed followed by phase diagrams. The influence of quenched disorder on the dielectric susceptibility is discussed. Our results indicate the existence of tricritical point for which the second order SmA-SmC* phase transition becomes first order with increasing the disorder. We find a qualitative agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental results.