Decoration of solid state ferroelectric domains by the help of ferroelectric liquid crystals

In this paper we report the experimental data on the visualisation of the d omain structure by FLCs in two different crystals: ammonium lithium sulphat e (ALS) and deuterated triglycine sulphate (DTGS). In general, for ferroele ctric solid crystals (FSC) two different geometries are available for the d ecoration: polar and nonpolar cuts, i.e. slices normal or parallel to the p olar axis. In the experiments with FLC materials we used only polar cuts, i .e. FLC on the polar (010) plane of ALS and DTGS. The samples were prepared as sandwich structures FSC-FLC-electrode-glass substrate. The dynamic swit ching of the FSC domain-structure is discussed. The generation of a pyroele ctric domain structure is also demonstrated.