COLLECTIVE DYNAMICS OF A FERROELECTRIC SMECTOGEN IN GEOMETRICAL CONFINEMENT

We investigate the influence of geometric confinement on the dynamics in a ferroelectric smectic C material. Molecular and collective relax ation processes are studied by means of broadband dielectric spectrosc opy. In microporous material (pore size 200 nm) the Goldstone mode (GM ) is still observed, but it is shifted to lower frequencies compared w ith bulk samples. In nanoporous material (pore size 7.5 nm), the colle ctive reorientation modes are completely suppressed. In all samples, t he molecular processes seem to be uninfluenced by the confinement.