Electrical and Optical Characteristics of Nematic Liquid Crystal/Nanofibers Composite Device

Abstract

Novel nematic liquid crystal (NLC) / nanofibers (NFs) composite device and its optical and electrical characteristics are presented. Parallel NLC/NFs composite devices are constructed by using indium tin oxide (ITO) glass with aligned PVA NFs on its surface. Those composite devices are then observed under cross-nicol condition to confirm the orientation of NLC molecules. Measurement of dielectric constant is carried out to estimate their electrical characteristics. Experiment result shows that the LC molecules are oriented along the direction of NFs and novel composite devices have shorter response time than those of pure NLC device. Further investigation on the decay waveform shows that, NLC/NFs composite has a decay time constant of dozens ms, much shorter than those of pure NLC.