Optical Study of a Chiral Smectic C Under Shear

Abstract

Abstract We study the distortion of a chiral smectic C, under a shear applied parallel to the plane of the layers, using an original technique based on the modification of the conoscopic image. Both the amplitude of the distortion and the phase lag between the alternating applied shear and the deformation are found to vary like the flow induced transverse polarization (described in Ref. 7). The behaviour is understood in terms of a viscoelastic-nematic-like model and of a simplified optical description which gives account of the displacement without deformation of the conoscopic image.