A Practical Method of Preparing Thin Homogeneous Ferroelectric Smectic Cells for Electro-Optical Microsecond Switches (II): Sm A Liquid Crystal Growth under a Temperature Gradient

A large size homogeneous monodomain cell is prepared by growing smectic A under a temperature gradient. The nucleation of aligned smectic A is initiated with the aid of a spacer edge. The temperature gradient is obtained by using an ITO electrode properly etched as a local heater. The obtained monodomain size is at least one square millimeter.