We study the effects of mixing ferroelectric and antiferroelectric liquid-crystal compounds (FLCs and AFLCs) when the former are strictly synclinic and the latter strictly anticlinic, i.e. one mixture component exhibits only SmC* and the other only SmCa* as tilted phase. Three different paths between syn- and anticlinicity were detected: transition directly between SmC* and SmCa*, transition via the SmCβ* and SmCγ* subphases, or by “escaping” the clinicity frustration by reducing the tilt to zero, i.e. the SmA* phase is extended downwards in temperature, separating SmC* from SmCa* in the phase diagram. The most common path is the one via the subphases, demonstrating that these phases appear as a result of frustration between syn- and anticlinic and, consequently, between syn- and antipolar order. For assessing the role of chirality, we also replaced the FLC with non-chiral synclinics. With one of the AFLCs, the route via supbhases was detected even in this case, suggesting that chirality —although necessary— does not have quite the importance that has previously been attributed to the appearance of the subphases. The path chosen in the mixture study seemed to be determined mainly by the synclinic component, the subphase induction occurring only when the SmA*-SmC* transition was second order.
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