Transient behaviour of polarity-reversed current in a liquid-crystal-montmorillonite-clay device

Transient currents induced by the polarity reversal of an applied dc voltage in nematic liquid crystal hybridized with montmorillonite clay have been studied. Comparative values of the ion-charge concentrations deduced from the experimental data suggest that the clay hybridized into liquid crystal has a great impact on the ion-charge concentration, which can be dramatically reduced to as low as to similar to 1% for a nematic cell containing merely 0.5 wt% clay. Such hybridization suppresses the formation of electric bilayers and the charge-screening effect. Due to the clay and liquid-crystal molecules being aligned to the direction of the field, a higher mobility is observed in hybridized cells. This study demonstrates that montmorillonite clay hybridized into liquid crystal yields many advantages to improve the electro-optical properties of the display device.