Nanostructured hafnium-doped strontium oxide film for homeotropic/homogeneous convertible liquid crystal alignment depending on the curing temperature

A hafnium strontium oxide(HfSrO)liquid crystal(LC)alignment film was efficiently created through brush coating,and its ability to change the LC alignment direction was confirmed.A brush was applied to HfSrO sol coated on an indium-tin oxide substrate,after which the coating was solidified at var-ious curing temperatures.It was confirmed that a directional micro/nanostructure was formed above 280°C due to the shear stresses caused by the movement of the brush hairs.Surface chemical changes were analyzed by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and contact angle measurements.As the curing temperature increased,the prevalence of oxygen bonds increased and the contact angle decreased,thereby increasing the surface energy.The anisotropic boundary of the micro-grooves and the van der Waals forces due to an increase in surface energy changed the alignment direction of LC mole-cules from vertical to horizontal,as verified through polarized optical microscopy and pretilt angle measurements.Thus,the efficiency of the brush-coating method,which dramatically simplifies the LC alignment film process,was confirmed.The homeotropic/homogeneous LC alignment property of the HfSrO film produced through brush coating depending on the curing temperature provides an innovative approach for LC alignment.

Effects of Side Chains with Similar Lengths and Different Structures of Polyimides on Liquid Crystal Alignment Behavior

Polyimides（PI） with different side chains in structure were synthesized by copolycondensation of pyromelliticmdianhydride（PMDA） with 3,5-diamino-（4＇-methane acid hexyl ester） phenyl-benzamide（C6-PDA）,（4-butoxybiphenol）-3＇, 5＇-diaminobenzoate（C4-BBDA） and 3, 5-diamino-benzoic acid decyl ester（C10-DA） named PI-PDA, PI-C4, PI-DA, respectively. The lengths of side chains of PI-PDA and PI-DA are as similar as that of PI-C4. Through the pretilt angle tests it is demonstrated that neither the structure of side chains nor the rubbing process could make an obvious difference on vertical alignment property when the lengths of the side chains are similar, standing at around 1.6 nm. The measurement of surface energy of PI surfaces further proved this result. The result of the X-ray photo-electron spectroscope measurement indicated that the side chains of PIs stretched out from the polymer bulk phase and accumulated on the surface.

Determining the sum of flexoelectric coefficients in nematic liquid crystals by the capacitance method

A detailed theoretical analysis of determining the sum of flexoelectric coefficients in nematic liquid crystals using the capacitance method is given. In the strong anchoring parallel aligned nematic （PAN） and hybrid aligned nematic （HAN） cells, the dependences of the capacitance on the sum of flexoelectric coefficients and the applied voltage are obtained by numerical simulations, and the distributions of the director and the electric potential for different applied voltages and flexoelectric coefficients are also given. Based on this theoretical analysis, we propose an experimental design for measuring the capacitance of a liquid crystal cell using the improved precision LCR meter E4980A （Agilent）. Through comparing the experimental data with the simulated results, the sum of flexoeletric coefficients can be determined.