Modulated Hexatic- with giant electroclinic effect rather than anticlinic Hexatic- —A novel mechanism for stabilizing antiferroelectricity below Smectic-

¹  Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Trinity College, University of Dublin - Dublin 2, Ireland
²  Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Tübingen - 72076 Tübingen, Germany
³  Department of Environmental Materials Science, Tokyo Denki University - Tokyo 101-8457, Japan

Corresponding author: jvij@tcd.ie

Received: 18 October 2006
Accepted: 9 December 2006

Abstract

The antiferroelectric hexatic phase observed below antiferroelectric has so far been considered to have the same anticlinic structure as in . The orientational order parameter determined by infrared spectroscopy distinctively disproves the previous view and concludes that molecular long axes are not tilted from the layer normal. The phase can be identified as non-tilted modulated and the electric-fieldinduced phase transition from this phase to tilted ferroelectric can be considered as the giant electroclinic effect due to the opening of closed modulation loops.