In-situ homeotropic alignment of dye doped liquid crystal molecules on multilayered self assembled nanoparticles in confined cells for next generation display devices

Abstract

The in-situ homeotropic alignment (HA) of pure liquid crystal (LC) and dye doped LC molecules was prepared on the multilayered self assembled silica nanoparticles (SNPs) deposited on the substrates in a confined empty ITO cell. The LC and azo dye mixtures with (0.0625–0.5 wt%) concentrations show the uniform in-situ HA of nematic LC (NLC) over SNPs coated surface. The surface morphology with mapping of elements and functionality of the SNPs coated ITO glass substrate were confirmed by “field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM)” and “X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)”. Polarized optical microscopic textures and conoscopic view of pure and dye doped LC mixtures in SNPs coated confined cells, confirmed the HA of LC molecules and exhibited the uniform black textures under crossed polarizers. The electro-optic behaviour of dye doped homeotropically aligned LC (HALC) cells was compared to pure SNPs coated HALC cell. The results showed that on increasing the azo dye concentration (0.0625–0.25 wt%), the threshold (Vth) and operating (Vo) voltages were found decreased. However, on further increase of dye concentration to 0.5 wt%, Vth and Vo were observed relatively increased. The contrast ratio (CR) was found improved in dye doped HALCs with maximum CR at lowest dye concentration (0.0625 wt%). The UV results exhibit higher absorbance of the dye doped HALC cells with increasing the dye concentration. Also, the band gap values showed that the addition of even small amount of dye, it reduced the value of band gap in HALC cell.