Asymmetric switching and storage effects in ferroelectric and antiferroelectric gels and polymers

Abstract Ferroelectric liquid crystal mixtures containing photochemical crosslinkers are found to exhibit asymmetric switching properties if the crosslinking process was performed under the influence of an electric field. This behavior can be attributed to the stabilizing effect of the polymer network on the ferroelectric state of the appropriate polarity. We report on the electro-optic properties of ferroelectric and antiferroelectric samples crosslinked with and without an applied electric field. Samples with sufficiently high content of the mesogenic crosslinker can be used for photo-optical storage effects which occur in both ferroelectric and antiferroelectric systems.