Influence of the surface alignment conditions and the polymer stabilization on the electrooptic characteristics of ferroelectric liquid crystal displays exhibiting half-V switching - A comparison of photoalignment and rubbing technique

In this paper, it is reported that the electrooptic (EO) performance of a ferroelectric liquid crystal display (FLCD) exhibiting half-V-shaped switching using an FLC material which has no smectic A phase-R2301 (Clariant Japan) depends on the surface alignment conditions such as photoalignment and rubbing. It is shown that an FLCD cell fabricated using the photoalignment technique, which produces weak azimuthal anchoring, results in a superior EO performance at a low saturation operation voltage and for a wide cone (deflection) angle compared to those fabricated under a weak-rubbing condition. Furthermore, polymer stabilization using newly developed photocurable monomers was adopted in order to increase the thermal stability of the EO characteristics of a half-V-shaped FLCD, This polymer stabilization is also shown to influence the EO characteristics.