Electrooptic investigations of enantiomeric mixtures of the antiferroelectric liquid crystal TFMHPOBC

Measurements are reported for the polarization in the ordered phase, and for the tilt susceptibility in the 'disordered' smectic A phase, of mixtures of left- and right-handed enantiomers of TFMHPOBC. The tilt susceptibility was found to exhibit a critical exponent gamma 1.20 0.05, and both its magnitude and the polarization were found to be nonmonotonic in enantiomeric excess X of S-TFMHPOBC. Their ratio, however, was found to be approximately constant with X. Several possible explanations are examined.