Abstract
Owing to the significant price drop of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and the efforts to save natural resources, LCDs are even replacing paper to display static images such as price tags and advertising boards. Because of a growing market demand on such devices, the LCD that can be of numerous surface alignments of directors as its ground state, the so-called multi-stable LCD, comes into the limelight due to the great potential for low power consumption. However, the multi-stable LCD with industrial feasibility has not yet been successfully performed. In this paper, we propose a simple and novel configuration for the multi-stable LCD. We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that a battery of stable surface alignments can be achieved by the field-induced surface dragging effect on an aligning layer with a weak surface anchoring. The simplicity and stability of the proposed system suggest that it is suitable for the multi-stable LCDs to display static images with low power consumption and thus opens applications in various fields.
Highlights
Liquid crystals (LCs) have the preferred orientation of molecules, the so-called director n, which can be controlled by weak physical cues, such as surface modification and electromagnetic fields[1]
In order to achieve a weak anchoring surface, we used the polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) as a tangential aligning layer in which the director nof used LC is aligned parallel to the layer
The phase diagram of the LC confirmed by polarizing optical microscopy (POM) upon cooling is Cr (< 20 °C) N (120 °C) I where Cr, N, and I are crystal, nematic and isotropic phases, respectively
Summary
Liquid crystals (LCs) have the preferred orientation of molecules, the so-called director n , which can be controlled by weak physical cues, such as surface modification and electromagnetic fields[1]. We experimentally and theoretically demonstrate that when a sufficient electric field is applied for a certain amount of time in the proposed cell, the directors in a bulk and on an aligning surface are reorientated and the ground state can be reestablished.
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