Evaluation of the surface alignment of liquid crystal using phase transition droplet method

Abstract

Anchoring strength is an important parameter to fabricate LC devices. The quantitative measurement of surface order parameter is quite important for research on physical properties of liquid crystals alignment and anchoring strength. But we had no suitable method to measure the surface order parameter. Therefore, we propose a new method using phase transition droplet to evaluate the surface order parameter. We also found that the Ar plasma decrease surface order parameter and propose a new model which explain our experimental result.