We present experimental evidence of polarity dependent thresholdless switching in ferroelectric chiral smectic C liquid crystals confined by an ion-store electrochromic film. The interaction between high polarization liquid crystals and a mixed conductor film of tungsten oxide is responsible for unipolar hysteretic electro-optic behavior. According to Clark’s model [N. A. Clark et al., Liq. Cryst. 27, 985 (2000)], in the limit of high spontaneous polarization, the electro-optics of liquid crystals are dominated by electrostatics. Here, we discuss the ion store film’s influence on analogue “V-shaped” switching due to different electrostatic contributions for each polarity of the applied field.
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