PA23 Effects of liquid crystalline dendrimers on spontaneous homeotropic alignment and response property

Abstract

Liquid crystalline dendimer (LCD) exhibits strong spontaneous vertical alignment, and a homeotropic alignment is formed in nematic LC by adding a little amount of the LCD. When LC display device was prepared using LCD/nematic LC mixture, vertical alignment (VA) mode drive operated at the device without using polyimide alignment layer. In this study, two kinds of LCDs having different smectic A/isotropic phase trantion temperatures (T_SI); 32.1 and 73.0℃, were dissolved in nematic LC having T_NI=95℃, and LC cells were prepared using the LCD/LC mixtures. The homeotropic alignment was hold at around T_NI. The homeotropic alignment structure induced by the LCDs was highly stable. The both LC cells exhibited VA-mode drive at the temperature range from 25 to 100℃ irrespective of different T_SI of the LCDs.