Advanced Materials, Vol.8, No.8, 644-647, 1996
Dielectric relaxation processes in a brick-like metallomesogen ferroelectric liquid crystal
1A non-typical ferroelectric liquid crystal (LC), i.e., one that is brick shaped-rather than cylindrical-with an oxovanadium metallic center incorporated in its mesogenic core, is shown to exhibit an unusual dielectric response, owing to its highly biaxial molecular nature, with frequencies lower than those found in other ferroelectric LCs. This is the first time that both the Goldstone mode (related to azimuthal fluctuations) and the soft mode (related to fluctuations in the tilt angle) have been characterized for a ferroelectric metallomesogen.