Abstract
Tilted smectic phases of achiral banana-shaped molecules are polar and may form a number of different states (chiral or racemic, antiferroelectric or ferroelectric), which can be interchanged by external fields. In thin films they may assume various layer structures (vertical, tilted or horizontally modulated), which can be set by external effects. In this paper we describe electric field and mechanical shear induced structural transitions in smectic phases of bent-core molecules. We discuss the field-induced distortion of the antiferroelectric state and the changeover of the chirality.
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