X-ray studies of layer structure and needle defects in anti-parallel aligned SSFLC devices with medium pre-tilt

X-ray diffraction has been used to investigate the structure of ferroelectr ic Smectic C* (SmC*) devices with anti-parallel orientation of the alignmen t layers. The layer structure during cooling from the Smectic A (SmA) phase has been determined for three different surface pre-tilts. The results are presented as two-dimensional layer normal distributions that show in detai l the changes in layer orientation as a function of temperature. For low an d medium pre-tilt surfaces a transformation from a uniformly tilted layer i n the Sm A to a chevron in the Sm C was observed in monodomain regions. The se surfaces also tended to show needle defects in the Sm C and their layer structure is discussed.