The local layer structure of surface stabilized electroclinic liquid crystals has been analysed by time-resolved synchrotron X-ray microdiffraction. At a low applied electric field, the initial bookshelf structure starts to respond above a threshold voltage. With a low to medium applied field of triangular form, the layer structure transforms reversibly between the bookshelf (low field) and the compound chevron (high field), in which the vertical and horizontal chevrons alternate along the layer. When the horizontal chevron component appears, a stripe texture can be seen in an optical micrograph. With increasing field, the horizontal chevron becomes a dominant structure while the vertical chevron still remains. The layer spacing changes in correlation with the chevron angle during the field application. At high field, surface molecules partly rearrange, resulting in alignment deterioration at the interface. The layer response time for an a.c. square wave field is of the order of a few μs to ten μs, which is close to the optical response. The appearance of the compound chevron is discussed in conjunction with the anchoring effect. © 2005 Taylor &amp
Francis Group Ltd.