Advances in the metal nanoparticles (MNPs) doped liquid crystals and polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) composites and their applications - a review

Abstract

There is a great interest in doping of different types of nanoparticles (NPs) in the opto-electronic display devices including liquid crystal displays and polymer dispersed LCs. Doping of NPs into the LC displays improves EO characteristics of the films including low threshold voltage, and alterations in pretilt angle. Specifically, gold NPs (GNPs) doped PDLC films demonstrate superior EO and dielectric characteristics. The article extensively explores recent experimental progress and technical issues related to the dispersion of GNPs into the LCs i.e., tuning of LC properties with doping of GNPs. Some recent advances of GNP doped PDLCs have been briefly discussed.

Keywords:

• Electro-Optical (EO) properties
• liquid crystal (LC) display
• metal (Gold) nanoparticle
• polymer dispersed liquid crystal

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the respective publishers/authors for permission to reproduce Figs. 1–19, and Table 3 taken from the NIH, Royal Society of Chemistry, Wiley-VCH, American Chemical Society (ACS), MDPI, The Japan Society of Applied Physics, American Institute of Physics (AIP) and Optical Society of America, USA.

Ethical statement

The authors declare that the submitted is original and unique work and it has not been submitted to another journal simultaneity.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.