Total Internal Reflection (TIR) is used to probe the molecular organization at the surface of a tilted chiral smectic liquid crystal at temperatures in the vicinity of the bulk antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase transition. Data are interpreted using an exact analytical solution of a real model for ferroelectric order at the surface. In the mixture T3, ferroelectric surface order is expelled with the bulk ferroelectric-antiferroelectric transition. The conditions for ferroelectric order at the surface of an antiferroelectric bulk are presented.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0302158,
title = {Liquid Crystal-Solid Interface Structure at the Antiferroelectric-Ferroelectric Phase Transition},
author = {D. Coleman and S. Bardon and L. Radzihovsky and G. Danner and N. A. Clark},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0302158},
year = {2009}
}