Abstract
The decrease of the residual direct current (DC) voltage (Vrdc) of the anti-parallel liquid crystal (LC) cell using silver (Ag)-doped Polyimide (Ag-d-PI) alignment layers is presented in this manuscript. A series of Ag/PI composite thin layers are prepared by spurting or doping PI thin layers with Ag nano-particles, and Ag/PI composite thin layers are highly transparent and resistive. LC are homogeneously aligned between 2.0 mg/ml Ag-d-PI alignment layers, and the Vrdc of the cell that assembled with Ag-d-PI alignment layers decreases about 82%. The decrease of Vrdc is attributed to the trapping and neutralizing of mobile ions by Ag nano-particles. Regardless of the effect of Ag nano-particles on the conductivity of Ag-d-PI alignment layers, the voltage holding ratio (VHR) of the cells is maintained surprisingly. The experiment results reveal a simple design for a low Vrdc LC cell.
Highlights
Liquid crystals (LC) are widely used in electro-optic devices because of their unique electro-optic anisotropy; the mobile ions in liquid crystal (LC) cause a lot of problems relating to LC switching
Because of the electric field, the doped nano-materials in LC move towards alignment layers and are accumulated alignment layers,ofwhich enhances alignment layers with materials;onhowever, because the electric field,Vthe doped nano-materials move towards rdc generation
Ag-d-PI thin layers were prepared by spin-coating the prepared Ag/PI solutions on ITO
Summary
Liquid crystals (LC) are widely used in electro-optic devices because of their unique electro-optic anisotropy; the mobile ions in LC cause a lot of problems relating to LC switching. The moving of mobile ions driven by electric forces towards alignment layers results in their accumulation on alignment layers, which generates residual direct current (DC) voltage (Vrdc ) inside LC cells and adversely affects LC’ switching [1–6]. A lot of attempts have been adopted to prevent the influences of mobile ions on LC electro-optical performances, such as designing special LC molecules, purifying LC, doping LC [13,14], replacing the polyimide (PI) alignment layers with conductive materials [15–18], and photo-aligning LC [19–21], etc. The aggregation of nano-materials is partially prevented by tightly limiting the amount of doped nano-materials; Crystals 2019, 9, 181; doi:10.3390/cryst9040181 www.mdpi.com/journal/crystals because of the electric field, the doped nano-materials in LC move towards alignment layers and are accumulated alignment layers,ofwhich enhances Replacingin.
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