Abstract
The liquid crystal alignment of fluorinated amorphous carbon (a-C:F) films which were deposited on the indium tin oxide (ITO) glass have shown to be improved by plasma beam processing. The experimental results indicated that excellent alignment characteristics regarding the range of pretilt angles and the alignment uniformity in a-C:F alignment films were improved by using the H2/Ar plasma beam processing. In this study, measurements of a-C:F film properties and liquid crystal (LC) cell characteristics were performed to investigate the relationship between the ratio of H2/Ar gaseous mixture and the LC alignment characteristics. The use of different gases allows enhanced control of the final surface chemical and physical properties. It was observed from the atomic force microscopy (AFM) results that the ion bombardment of films has a minimal impact on the alignment properties. Moreover, the X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) results showed that the H2/Ar plasma beam processing induces bond-breaking and chain scission. The results also indicated that the C–F bonds are broken by Ar+ and H radicals, while the benzene rings have carbon dangling bonds for the formation of C–O bonds in a-C:F films. Finally, the F/C ratio of a-C:F films was observed to be controlled by the H2/Ar ratio and the pretilt angles could be obtained from measurements of LC cells shown on a-C:F films.
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