Ripple phenomenon of displays with nematic liquid crystal

Abstract

Liquid crystal displays will show ripple if the display surface or display bracket is subjected to tactile forces. In this paper, the ripple of liquid crystal displays is investigated by dealing with elastic wave propagation in a liquid crystal layer. The model proposed for a visco-elastic medium like liquid crystals (LCs) is generalized by combining the properties of a crystalline solid and an anisotropic fluid. The governing equation is derived by using visco-elastic and wave equations. In the experiments, a linear motor is used to touch the display panel for producing ripple. Displays of three different amounts of LCs are compared. Experimental results also show that each display panel has its own wave propagation velocity that is not changed by different motor touch speeds. In addition, both theoretical analysis and experimental results depict that displays with a larger amount of LCs lead to slower ripple speed.