A racemic layer structure in a chiral bent-core ferroelectric liquid crystal

A fluid smectic phase of a chiral bent-core liquid crystal was found to hav e a ground state structure that is anticlinic in tilt and ferroelectric in polar order, SmCAPF*. The layer chirality of this structure alternates from layer to layer despite their being composed of chiral mesogens. Observatio ns of the optical second harmonic generation signal from well-aligned domai ns confirm that the ground state of this phase is bistable ferroelectric. I n addition to the ground state two types of metastable domains are also obs erved.