FTIR study of a chiral tilted SmA liquid crystalline phase

In this paper we present the results of the polarized infrared spectroscopy as evidence for the existence of a chiral analogue of the SmA phase of the de Vries type. In this phase, the molecular director in the smectic layers is tilted with respect to the smectic layer normal. The dichroic ratio is found to increase when the voltage crosses a threshold, and reaches a saturation value where all the directors of different layers are interpreted to be aligned perpendicular to the direction of the electric field. The possible molecular structure of de Vries SmA* phase is discussed.