Switching behaviour of S_c^* liquid crystals

Abstract

The ‘anomalous’ switching behaviour of S_c ^* liquid crystals has been reported both theoretically and experimentally. These FLCs show a minimum in switching time (τ) at sufficiently high fields. Although in many cases the simple uniform switching model successfully predicts the electric field for which τ attains a minimum, for other materials the switching time is found to decrease monotonically with increasing applied voltage. We discuss the inadequacies of the uniform switching model and then proceed to describe our early attempts to develop a non-uniform model. We consider the E-field variation through the cell and also the effect of introducing asymmetry into the system. At all times we use the bookshelf geometry.