Liquid crystal device having mixture of cholesteric and smectic liquid crystals and alignment treatment on only one substrate

A liquid crystal device, comprising:

• a pair of substrates, one of said substrates having a uniaxial aligning treatment and the other of said substrates having no aligning treatment;
• a chiral smectic liquid crystal disposed between the substrates in a layer thin enough to suppress its own helical structure;
• said chiral smectic liquid crystal comprising a mixture of at least one species of compound showing smectic phase and at least one species of compound showing cholesteric phase, said chiral smectic liquid crystal being placed in chiral smectic C phase by temperature decrease from a higher temperature phase than the chiral smectic phase through smectic A phase and being aligned to form molecular axes aligned in a direction of said uniaxial aligning treatment in the smectic A phase.