Fabrication of homogenously self-alignment fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal cell without using a conventional alignment layer

ABSTRACT

We propose a novel method to fabricate a uniaxially homogeneous alignment of liquid crystal (LC) molecules without using a conventional alignment layer such as polyimide film. The method produces the polymer alignment layer (PAL) by polymerisation of the monomer including in the LC layer above the T_NI of the LC material. The fringe-field switching (FFS) mode LC cell with the PAL (FFS-PAL-LC cell) produced from the monomer 4,4ʹ-di-mehacryloyl-oxy chalcone (4,4ʹ-DMOCh) exhibited enough level of alignment state and electro-optical property compared with the FFS-LC cell having the conventional polyimide-type alignment layer. We can expect that the FFS-PAL-LC cell is useful for next-generation displays such as flexible liquid crystal displays (LCDs) because the method does not need high-temperature process of over 200°C.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Chalcone
• monomer
• polymer alignment layer
• homogeneous alignment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.