Ferroelectric Nematic and Ferrielectric Smectic Mesophases in an Achiral Bent-Core Azo Compound

Ferro- and ferrielectricity and negative piezoelectricity in thioamide-based supramolecular organic discotics

Amide-based discotic supramolecular organic materials are of interest for fundamental understanding of cooperative self-assembly and collective dipole switching mechanisms as well as for practically relevant ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. Here, we show how replacing amides (dipole moment of ∼3.5 D) with thioamides (∼5.1 D) as dipolar moieties in the archetypal C₃-symmetric discotic molecule BTA leads to ferroelectric materials with a higher remnant polarization and lower coercive field. The thioamide-based materials also demonstrate a rare negative piezoelectricity and a previously predicted, yet never experimentally observed, polarization reversal via asymmetric intermediate states, that is, ferrielectric switching.

Spontaneous Polarization Characteristics in Polar Smectic Phases of Fluoro-Substituted Bent-Shaped Dimeric Molecules

Three kinds of bent-shaped dimeric molecules are synthesized by fluorine substitution of C16 molecules, and influences of the substitution on the polar smectic phases are examined. The fluorine-substituted C16 molecules form the SmAP_F and SmC_AP_A phases. The transition temperatures decrease by 20-30 °C without significantly changing the temperature span of the smectic phase, and the switching rates to the ferroelectric state become 5-10 μs, which are fairly shorter than 250 μs of C16. These behaviors are considered to be caused by the decrease in the intermolecular force and the decrease in the viscosity. The anchoring behavior also appears to be different. On the indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated cell, the fluorine-substituted molecules are homogeneously aligned with the bent (polar) axes perpendicular to the surface, while the bent axes of ordinary bent-shaped molecules lie parallel to the surface. This may be attributable to the repulsion between the fluorine and ITO electrodes. Further, the fluorine substitution can increase the dipole moment of the molecule. The largest dipole moment obtained is 7.94 D, and this leads to a huge reversal polarization of 2.42 μC cm^-2, which is much higher compared to those reported in the bent-shaped molecules.

Electric Switching Behaviors and Dielectric Relaxation Properties in Ferroelectric, Antiferroelectric, and Paraelectric Smectic Phases of Bent-Shaped Dimeric Molecules

This study reports the electric switching behaviors and dielectric properties of the ferroelectric smectic-A (SmAP_F), anti-ferroelectric smectic-A (SmAP_A), anti-ferroelectric SmC_AP_A, and smectic-A (SmA) phases formed by mixing the bent-shaped dimeric molecules, α,ω-bis(4-alkoxyanilinebenzylidene-4'-carbonyloxy)pentanes. These four phases each show characteristic features. The SmAP_F shows a low threshold electric field for ferroelectric switching and a large dielectric strength due to the collective fluctuation mode of dipoles at around 500 Hz. Both the threshold electric field and dielectric strength are strongly dependent on the cell thickness. The threshold field decreases to 0.1 V μm^-1, and the dielectric strength increases up to a huge value of 10,000 as the cell thickness increases up to 80 μm. The SmAP_A also shows a similar collective mode at around 2 kHz with a relatively small dielectric strength (around 200), which may be induced by the anti-phase rotation of dipoles in adjacent layers. In these collective modes, the dielectric strength is found to be inversely proportional to the switching threshold field. On the other hand, another anti-ferroelectric SmC_AP_A as well as the paraelectric SmA show only the non-collective mode (i.e., rotational relaxation of individual molecules around their short axes) at a high frequency of around 100 kHz.

Nanostructure of Unconventional Liquid Crystals Investigated by Synchrotron Radiation

The macroscopic properties of novel liquid crystal (LC) systems-LCs with unconventional molecular structure as well as conventional LCs in unconventional geometries-directly descend from their mesoscopic structural organization. While X-ray diffraction (XRD) is an obvious choice to investigate their nanoscale structure, conventional diffractometry is often hampered by experimental difficulties: the low scattering power and short-range positional order of the materials, resulting in weak and diffuse diffraction features; the need to perform measurements in challenging conditions, e.g., under magnetic and/or electric fields, on thin films, or at high temperatures; and the necessity to probe micron-sized volumes to tell the local structural properties from their macroscopic average. Synchrotron XRD allows these problems to be circumvented thanks to the superior diffraction capabilities (brilliance, q-range, energy and space resolution) and advanced sample environment available at synchrotron beamlines. Here, we highlight the potentiality of synchrotron XRD in the field of LCs by reviewing a selection of experiments on three unconventional LC systems: the potentially biaxial and polar nematic phase of bent-core mesogens; the very high-temperature nematic phase of all-aromatic LCs; and polymer-dispersed liquid crystals. In all these cases, synchrotron XRD unveils subtle nanostructural features that are reflected into macroscopic properties of great interest from both fundamental and technological points of view.