Tristable nematic liquid-crystal device using micropatterned surface alignment

Jong-Hyun Kim (), Makoto Yoneya and Hiroshi Yokoyama
Additional contact information
Jong-Hyun Kim: Yokoyama Nano-structured Liquid Crystal Project, ERATO, Japan Science and Technology Corporation
Makoto Yoneya: Yokoyama Nano-structured Liquid Crystal Project, ERATO, Japan Science and Technology Corporation
Hiroshi Yokoyama: Yokoyama Nano-structured Liquid Crystal Project, ERATO, Japan Science and Technology Corporation

Nature, 2002, vol. 420, issue 6912, 159-162

Abstract: Abstract It has long been appreciated that liquid-crystal (LC) devices in which the LC molecules adopt multiple stable orientations could drastically reduce the power consumption required for high-information-content displays. But for the commonly used nematic LCs, which are intrinsically uniaxial in symmetry, no industrially feasible multi-stable LC device has been realized1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Recently we demonstrated how bistability can be robustly engineered into a nematic LC device, by patterning a substrate with an orientational chequerboard pattern that enforces orthogonal LC alignment in neighbouring square domains8,9. As a result of the four-fold symmetry of the pattern, the two diagonal axes of the chequerboard become equally stable macroscopic orientations. Here we extend this symmetry approach to obtain a tristable surface-aligned nematic LC. A microscopic pattern exhibiting six-fold symmetry is inscribed on a polyimide surface using the stylus of an atomic force microscope. The hexagonal symmetry of the microscopic orientational domains in turn gives rise to three stable macroscopic LC orientations, which are mutually switchable by an in-plane electric field. The resulting switching mode is surface driven, and hence should be compatible with demanding flexible display applications.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01163 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:420:y:2002:i:6912:d:10.1038_nature01163

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature01163

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().