Preliminary communication Low frequency dielectric relaxation in the smectic C* phase of a ferroelectric liquid crystal

Abstract

Dielectric measurements were made on the ferroelectric liquid crystal Felix 018/100 manufactured by Hoechst, Germany, over the temperature range 30 to 65degreeC (smectic C* phase), frequency range 0.1Hz to 100kHz, with bias voltages of 0, 1, 3 and 10 V, and in a dielectric cell with a spacing of 4 times the helical pitch. Plots of the dielectric loss versus log (frequency) show the usual monotonic increase in the loss with decreasing frequency, as well as the usual loss peak at approximately 1kHz. Plots of the log (dielectric loss) against log (frequency) at low frequencies, have slopes varying from -0.75 to -0.89 when the temperature increases from 30 to 65degreeC. Following the suggestion of Scaife, transforming the complex permittivity data to the complex polarizability of a sphere of unit radius in a vacuum, and plotting the loss polarizability against log (frequency), shows two distinct and separate loss peaks. The sums of the two loss peaks appear to be independent of temperature and bias voltage, even though both depend on these variables.