Fabrication of Twisted Nematic Structure in Phase Separated Composite Films

Abstract

We investigated the liquid crystal (LC) alignment effect of the polymerized interface in the phase-separated composite film (PSCOF). Since the polymer morphology after phase separation depends highly on the LC ordering during phase separation, the azimuthal anchoring strength of the LC/polymer interface increased with highly ordered LCs. Using anchoring capability induced by imprinting effect of molecular ordering, we demonstrated a twisted nematic structure in PSCOF by application of in-plane electric fields during phase separation.

Keywords:

• azimuthal anchoring
• liquid crystal alignment
• molecular ordering
• phase-separated composite film
• phase separation
• twisted nematic structure

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by Korea Research Foundation Grant No. KRF-2004-005-D00165.