Surface evanescent field characterisation of antiferroelectric liquid crystals

In this paper we report a study of the dynamics of antiferroelectric liquid crystals by using simultaneous total internal reflection and transmission. In devices having both substrates coated with a polyimide, but only one ru bbed, we found that the optic axis of the liquid crystal region close to th e unrubbed substrate deviates from the rubbing direction less than the hulk . in switching experiments we find that this region is also slower then the bulk and it is virtually free from the undesired pretransitional effect. W e also found an asymmetry in the switching of the surface region and we use a simple model to account for it.