Some Mechanical Treatments for Alignments of Smectic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

We show the results on the planar alignment of chiral smectic liquid crystals made by mean of three different mechanical treatments. The orientational processes of these technics are explained on the basis of the orientation induced by a planar shearing of the samples. In addition we report on interesting realignment effects induced dynamically by the changing of the frequency of the sample thickness vibration.

Key Words:

• smectic I.c
• alignments of I.c
• uniaxial stresses
• chiral smectic I.c