Flexible Homeotropic Liquid Crystal Displays Using Low-Glass-Transition-Temperature Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Substrates

Abstract

This research is aimed at fabricating flexible homeotropic liquid crystal displays (LCDs) using low-glass-transition-temperature poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrates. The low-temperature technique of nanoparticle-induced vertical alignment (NIVA) was successfully applied to the flexible homeotropic PET-LCD. The PET film generally exhibits birefringence, which greatly interferes with the phase retardation of light propagation in the LCD. This problem can be alleviated by adjusting the optical axis with respect to the axis of the polarizer. The resulting flexible PET-LCD exhibited a low threshold voltage of 2.1 V and a transmittance of 53% at 3.2 V in the flat state. (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics