Asymmetrically anchored liquid crystal cell for display and photonics applications

ABSTRACT

Asymmetrically anchored liquid crystal (LC) cells have different anchoring energies between the top and bottom substrates. A substrate with patterned electrodes has comparatively weak anchoring energy. Therefore, asymmetrically anchored LC cells exhibit more twisted deformation in the on-state than conventional in-plane switching or fringe-field switching cells. In this study, we introduced asymmetrically anchored LC cells for display and photonic applications. We first introduced asymmetrically anchored LC cells to achieve high transmittance for LC displays. The LC molecules can rotate between the two substrates more easily because one of the two substrates has weaker anchoring energy. This resulted in a significant increase in transmittance. Three-terminal electrodes can be used to provide a vertical trigger pulse to an LC cell, thereby overcoming the delayed turn-off switching of an asymmetrically anchored cell without reducing transmittance. Next, we introduced an adjustable polarisation rotator with an asymmetrically anchored LC cell. To offer optical waveguiding, the arrangement of LC molecules can be controlled into a twisted configuration. During the cover of the wavelength range of 400–800 μm, we confirmed that the proposed LC cell can rotate the polarisation axis of linearly polarised light by up to 90°.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystals
• polarised light
• rotator
• tunable device

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP) [NRF- 2020R1A2C1006464 and NRF-2021R1I1A3052581].