Elastic model of the primary stripe texture in free-standing chiral smectic C films

In paper E. Gorecka et al.: Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 (1995) 4047 the modulations of the director inside smectic layers of chiral smectic C: free-standing f ilm were identified as a periodic system of domain walls on which the direc tor orientation changes by pi. Domain walls were terminated in the film bul k. An improved model, in which domain walls are terminated by (+/-pi)-discl inations, is proposed. The model is an extension of the model of Meyer and Pershan [Solid State Commun. 13 (1973) (989] for the case of chiral smectic C: films. The experimental dependence of the periodicity of the system on the film thickness is used to estimate the model parameters.