Dynamic Behavior of Helical Structure in Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals

Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) take a helical structure which can be unwound by the application of an electric field. Although the static orientational process of FLC molecules is well known, the dynamic modification process of the helical structure is not clearly understood. We formulated equations for simulating the dynamic response in terms of the elastic free-energy density based on the continuum theory, and subsequently was solved the dynamic equations numerically. Furthermore, the conoscopic image was simulated by a 4 x 4 matrix method. We investigated the effect of spontaneous polarization and dielectric anisotropy on the dynamic behavior of the helical structure in FLC.