Electro-disclinic effect in tilted smectic phases of banana-shaped liquid crystal materials

We give the first evidence that the director tilt angle can be reduced by e lectric fields in the tilted smectic phase of banana-shaped molecules. In t hese phases the value of polarization is determined by the molecular packin g and no electro-clinic effect is expected. Our studies show that high elec tric fields eventually induce a meta-stable phase with zero director tilt. The tilted phase slowly recovers at low fields. We propose that the field-i nduced quenching of the layer fluctuations is responsible for the observed effects.