The Origin of Collective Dielectric Relaxation Process in Ferroelectric and Antiferroelectric Phases of Liquid Crystals

Dielectric spectroscopy has proven as an important tool for the characterization of ferroelectric and antiferroelectric phases observed in the thermotropic chiral liquid crystals compounds. These compounds generally have paraelectric smectic A (SmA*) phase, ferroelectric smectic C (SmC*) phase and antiferroelectric smectic C (SmCA*) phase. In some compounds, ferroelectric (SmCg*) phase is also found. Dielectric spectra of these phases under planar alignment of the molecules are sometimes complex but rich in information and are very helpful in the determination of the structure of these phases. In the SmA* phase, a mode in high kHz region is observed. In the SmC* phase, a relaxation mode observed in low kHz region having high dielectric strength. However, in the SmCg* phase observed mode relaxation frequencies lies in same frequency window as SmC* phase but their dielectric strength was less than at least one order magnitude in comparison to observed mode of SmC* phase. In the SmCA* phase, dielectric spectrum contains two relaxation modes observed in kHz and MHz regions respectively. The dielectric strengths of these two modes are very small and less than at least one/two order magnitude in comparison to observed mode of SmA*/ SmC* phases. These observed relaxation processes are discussed as a function of temperature and bias electric field and their origin is also examined in the light of the experimental work. Dielectric parameters of the above phases observed in such material are discussed with regards to their structure property relationship.