V-shaped switching in a ferroelectric liquid crystal with the phase sequence of N*-SmC*

V-shaped switching was founded in a SmC* ferroelectric liquid crystal with the N*-SmC* phase sequence. When the FLC samples were cooled down from the isotropic phase to the SmC* phase without an applied voltage, the SmC* phase adapted a stripe-like quasi-periodic texture, consisting of two types of large-sized domains with different direction of the smectic layer normal. However, on cooling the sample from the isotropic phase to the SmC* phase with a square wave, we could get the configuration with small-sized domains. We found that the increase in the frequency of an applied electric field yielded domains with smaller size and a micro-domain configuration was achieved with a high frequency square wave. The FLC mode is suitable for TFT-LCD application due to the good optical efficiency, high speed and low P-s .