Domain Structures of Smectic Films Formed by Bent-Shaped Molecules

Abstract

We formulate a simple Landau type model describing macroscopic behaviour recently discovered new smectic phases composed of achiral bent-shaped molecules. Films of such smectics exhibit three types of ordering related to dipole polarization, molecular tilt, and chirality. However due to specific third order coupling of the order parameters these three types of symmetry-breaking are not independent ones, and this fact leads to specific domain structures really observed in experiments.