SPONTANEOUS LAYER TWIST IN A STRIPE TEXTURE OF CHIRAL FERROELECTRIC SMECTICS OBSERVED BY SYNCHROTRON X-RAY MICRODIFFRACTION

We noticed stripe domains accompanied with a zigzag defect loop, which cannot be explained as simple zigzag walls. The structure was analyze d using a synchrotron X-ray microbeam with a space resolution of 5 x 5 mu m(2). We propose that the structure is a chevron structure with a spontaneous layer twist, which is predicted to exist by the continuum theory but has not yet been observed experimentally.