Anchoring strength of dual rubbed alignment layers in liquid crystal cells

Interaction between liquid crystals and alignment layers is of great scientific and technical importance, but is not fully understood. We studied the aligning effect of orthogonally dual rubbed alignment layers in liquid crystal cells. We experimentally observed that with proper numbers of rubbing i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 2015-06, Vol.54 (6), p.61701
Main Authors: Cui, Yue, Yang, Young-Cheol, Yang, Deng-Ke
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alignment
Anchoring
Coefficients
Liquid crystals
Rubbing
Strength
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Summary:Interaction between liquid crystals and alignment layers is of great scientific and technical importance, but is not fully understood. We studied the aligning effect of orthogonally dual rubbed alignment layers in liquid crystal cells. We experimentally observed that with proper numbers of rubbing in the two directions, the generated easy axis of the aligning direction lay between them. We measured the polar and azimuthal anchoring strengths of the alignment layers. We observed that the rubbing in the second direction significantly changed the azimuthal anchoring direction and strength but not the polar anchoring. We theoretically found that Rapini-Papoular formula with quadratic and quartic terms can predict the aligning behavior of the alignment layers. We successfully determined the quartic azimuthal anchoring coefficient. The results are of significance for the understanding of the aligning mechanism of alignment layers.
ISSN:0021-4922
1347-4065
DOI:10.7567/JJAP.54.061701