It is shown that for some chiral smectic A materials the field-induced molecular tilt undergoes a peculiar sign inversion with respect to the layer normal as the temperature increases. The induced molecular tilt vanishes at a characteristic temperature in the smectic A state. This anomalous behavior can be described in terms of a dynamically fluctuating mixture of at least two molecular conformers, separated by an energy barrier in their liquid-crystalline states. The energy barrier between these two conformers is found to be comparable to the rotational barrier in normal hydrocarbons.
de Vries behavior in smectic liquid crystals near a biaxiality-induced smectic-A–smectic-Ctricritical point
