The threshold electric field $E_{\mathrm{th}}$ for a transition from the anticlinic to the synclinic phase of enantiomeric mixtures of the liquid crystal TFMHPOBC was measured as a function of temperature T and enantiomeric excess X. For small X the phase boundary curve on a temperature–electric-field phase diagram exhibits the phase sequence synclinic–anticlinic–reentrant synclinic on decreasing the temperature. At one point along the curve the quantity $dT/d\overrightarrow{E}\infty .$ For large values of enantiomeric excess a reentrant phase is not observed. The results are discussed using a simple phenomenological theory that accounts for layer-layer interactions, such that the electric-field-induced transition to the synclinic phase, although completed by solitary-wave propagation, is facilitated by a percolation mechanism.

• Received 19 February 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.68.011703