PB30 Polymer Stabilization of Reverse Twisted Nematic Director Configuration with UV Curable Liquid Crystalline Monomer

Abstract

The Reverse Twisted Nematic (RTN) LCD uses the RTN LC director configuration which is realized by applying an AC voltage to a splayed twist cell. The RTN configuration is unstable which is not suitable for LCD operation. To stabilize the RTN configuration, we examine the polymer-stabilization method using UV curable liquid-crystalline monomers. When a test cell is irradiated uniformly with UV light, polymer network formed inside the cell stabilizes well the RTN configuration if the amount of monomers added into the host NLC material is sufficient, while the LCD performance gets worse terribly. On the other hand, it is found that the vertically-aligned polymer wall formed only nearby the cell edge also stabilizes the RTN configuration successfully, without degrading the LCD performance.