Perhaps one of the most surprising results in the past 10 years was the prediction of Brand etal.1 that fluid biaxial smectics made from comopunds without asymmetric carbons could, by symmetry, have a spontaneous polarization, P, in the layer plane. They called this construct, which can be either ferroelectric or antiferroelectric, smectic C9. Advances gained from their prediction include the development of highly efficient electrets for broad-band telecommunications 2, 3 as well as a basic non-linear model 4 for TLAFs,thresholdless antiferroelectrics5, now seen in beatiful, CMOS compatible, active matrix liquid crystal displays 6 (figure 1).
展开▼
