Controllable alignment modes of nematic liquid crystals on argon ion beam bombarded polyimide films

Abstract

We investigate the alignment properties of nematic liquid crystal on polyimide films bombarded by Ar ion beams with a small diode sputter type ion-beam source. The alignments of nematic liquid crystal 4'-n-pentyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) on treated polyimide surface are characterized by using polarizing optical microscope and conoscope. The polyimide surfaces are also studied by using atomic force microscope and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. We have demonstrated that the polyimide surface treated by Ar ion beams can give both homogeneous and homeotropic alignments with the same ion beam apparatus but varying the energy of ion beam and the bombarding time.