THE ELASTICITY THEORY OF THE SMECTIC-C PHASE - THE CASE OF COMPRESSIBLE SMECTIC LAYERS

This contribution gives a slight generalization of the elasticity theory from Dahl and Lagerwall (1984) to the case of compressible smectic layers. The flexoelectric vector fields are treated in detail, and new flexoelectric coefficients are defined, in such a way that the distinction between surface and volume effects is taken care of. The compressibility of the smectic layers enables some new flexoelectric effects, but unless there are anomalous coefficients in the free energy, these effects should be of negligible order compared to the ordinary flexoelectric effects. © 1991, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.