Orientational deformation of ferroelectric liquid crystal molecules by bending performance of plastic substrate

We have examined the aspects of the orientational ordering deformation of ferroelectric liquid crystal during bending performance of plastic substrate by analyzing the polarizing optical microscope texture and the birefringence of the cell. Striped texture becomes more prominent as the radius of curvature of substrate gets smaller. The optic axis of the adjacent stripes domain was not same and the relative angle between them becomes larger as the radius of curvature gets smaller. Especially, the optic axis rotation angle of one domain was lager than the other and the liquid crystal molecules in each domain became more coherent. In addition, the birefringence data with obliquely incident light shows the polar direction shift of liquid crystal molecule by bending performance.