Improvement in device performance from a mixture of a liquid crystal and photosensitive acrylic prepolymer with the photoinduced vertical alignment method

In a multicomponent nematic liquid crystal (NLC) mixture of a liquid crystal (negative-type NLC) and a photosensitive acrylic prepolymer, photopolymerization upon UV irradiation induces the separation of the LC and photosensitive acrylic prepolymer layers, thereby leading to a vertical arrangement o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science and technology of advanced materials 2011-12, Vol.12 (6), p.065002-065002
Main Authors: Ho, Czung-Yu, Lin, Fa-Hsin, Tao, Yu-Tai, Lee, Jiunn-Yih
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alignment
Anchoring
Copolymers
electro-optical properties
grayscale switching
homeotropic texture
liquid crystal
Liquid crystals
Nematic crystals
Optical properties
Photopolymerization
photosensitive
Photosensitivity
prepolymer
Prepolymers
Response time
Ultraviolet radiation
vertical arrangement effect
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Summary:In a multicomponent nematic liquid crystal (NLC) mixture of a liquid crystal (negative-type NLC) and a photosensitive acrylic prepolymer, photopolymerization upon UV irradiation induces the separation of the LC and photosensitive acrylic prepolymer layers, thereby leading to a vertical arrangement of LC molecules. In this study, we propose a simple vertical alignment method for LC molecules, by adding a chiral smectic A (SmA∗) liquid crystal having homeotropic texture characteristics to an NLC mixture solution. Measurements of electro-optical properties revealed that the addition of the SmA∗ LC not only strengthened the anchoring force of the copolymer alignment film surface, but also significantly enhanced the contrast ratio (∼73%), response time and grayscale switching performance of the device.
ISSN:1468-6996
1878-5514
DOI:10.1088/1468-6996/12/6/065002