Simple vertical alignment of liquid crystals using photo-polymerization of alkyl acrylate monomer

ABSTRACT

A new method for vertical alignment of liquid crystals (LCs) via in situ photo-polymerization of alkyl acrylate monomer on indium tin oxide, without the use of conventional polyimide layer is presented. The UV irradiation of the LC mixture doped with acrylate monomer containing long alkyl group in the confined LC cell provides uniform and stable homeotropic alignment of the LC molecules. The electro-optical characteristic of the fabricated LC cell using this method exhibits similar performance to that of the LC device prepared by using the conventional polyimide alignment layer.

KEYWORDS:

• Alkyl acrylate
• liquid crystal display
• photo-polymerization
• vertical alignment

Funding

This research work was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2014R1A1A2057947).