The polar anchoring energy of nematic liquid crystals with polyvinylidene fluoride alignment layer

ABSTRACT

It has been proved that the high dielectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) could be used as an alignment layer in liquid crystal device. In this paper, the transmittance, pretilt angle and the polar anchoring energy of the substrates with PVDF alignment layer were researched. Theoretical results and the experimental results about the reflectivity R_SS (polarisation-conserving signals) recorded by full-leaky guided mode in liquid crystal technique are analysed to evaluate the anchoring energy of PVDF alignment layer. The result shows that the polar anchoring energy between PVDF alignment layer and liquid crystal molecules is 2.80 × 10⁻⁴ J/m².

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Polyvinylidene fluoride
• alignment layer
• anchoring energy
• fully-leaky guided mode

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Numbers 61475042, 11304074 and 11274088], the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province [Grant Numbers A2015202320 and GCC2014048] and Research Project of Hebei Education Department of China [Grant Number QN2015260].