Polar Order in a Fluid Like Ferroelectric with a Tilted Lamellar Structure - Observation of a Polar Smectic C (SmC_P) Phase.

ABSTRACT: The discovery of fluid states of matter with spontaneous bulk polar order is appreciated as a major discovery in the fields of soft matter and liquid crystals. Typically, this manifests as polar order superimposed atop conventional phase structures and is thus far limited to orthogonal phase types. Here we report a family of materials which exhibit a previously unseen state of matter which we conclude is a polar smectic C phase, and so we term it SmC_P. The spontaneous polarisation of the SmC_P phase is over two orders of magnitude larger than that found in conventional ferroelectric SmC phase of chiral materials used in some LCD devices. Fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations faithfully and spontaneously reproduce the proposed structure and associated bulk prop

SUBMITTER: Hobbs J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11753598 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature