Liquid crystal device with a bistable chiral smectic liquid crystal having a phase transition series lacking a cholesteric phase #16

摘要

A chiral smectic liquid crystal device with good planar homogeneity in a layer normal direction can be constituted by disposing a chiral smectic liquid crystal having no cholesteric phase between a pair of substrates having mutually different characters, particularly in terms of Iso-SmA phase transition temperature. The liquid crystal may preferably have a layer spacing-changing characteristic such that it provides a layer spacing d.sub.A at a first transition point where the layer spacing of the liquid crystal begins to decrease on temperature decrease in the vicinity of a transition temperature from SmA phase to SmC* phase and a layer spacing d.sub.min at a second transition point where the layer spacing of the liquid crystal begins to increase on further temperature decrease from the first transition point, satisfying 0.96≦d.sub. min /d.sub.A.