Time-resolved fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy on the inter- and intramolecular orientational dynamics in ferroelectric liquid crystalline dimers

On a base of time-resolved step-scan IR-spectroscopy data, we present a detailed model of the segmental reorientation during the ferroelectric and electroclinic switching of a chiral liquid crystalline dimer. We detected that the magnitude of the motion of the molecular segments differ from each other: The tilt angle is maximal for the mesogens and minimal for the ''virtual polysiloxane backbone.'' In contrast to a recently published conjecture, we prove that in the mu s scale the responses of different molecular segments are unambiguously synchronous with each other.