Electro-optic effects in a ferroelectric liquid crystal mixture

Recently Ferroelectric chiral smectic (SmC*) liquid crystals have attracted significant attention because of their possible applications as high speed switching devices.l Another electro-optic effect2 was realised by Yoshino and Ozaki in rather a thick cell, which has been termed as transient scattering mode. In the actual use of the liquid crystals, two or three compounds are generally mixed to form a new compound to suit the required conditions, viz., (1) high stability and long life, (2) large spontaneous polarization, (3) ferroelectricity at around room temperature and so on. An attempt has been made to study the electro-optic properties in a ferroelectric liquid crystal mixture, FCS101, which has a smectic C* phase in the temperature range 15-55.4°C.