Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.507, 73-83, 2009
Electro-optical Characteristics of Polymer Stabilized Vertically Aligned FLC Cell with Application of In-Plane Electric Field
The effect of rubbing treatment on the molecular orientation is investigated for the vertically aligned ferroelectric LC (VA-FLC) cell having an inter-digit electrode to apply an in-plane electric field. The FLC material with large cone angle (CS-2005 (Chisso Co. Ltd.)) was used since a sufficient high contrast ratio is obtained due to the large effective optical retardation even if the cell thickness is thin. The E-O characteristic was measured for not only normal VA-FLC cells but also polymer-stabilized VA-FLC cells. In the polymer stabilized VA-FLC, the FLC material doped with small amount of photo-curable mesogenic monomers was used. For the VA-FLC cell, it is effective to carry out the rubbing treatment on one side substrate or both side substrates which are assembled with the anti-parallel cell configuration. A half-V shaped T-V characteristics were obtained by implementing the polymer-stabilization technology.
Keywords:ferroelectric liquid crystal;in-plane electric field;polymer stabilization;vertical alignment