Inkjet printing of quantum rods on to the photoaligned substrate opens up the possibility of both brightness and color enhancement for liquid crystal displays (LCD) in the form of quantum rod enhancement films (QREF) for LCD backlights.
The photoalignment process to align semiconductor quantum rods (QRs) in the liquid crystal monomer (LCM) matrix is a flexible technology; however, the optical quality of the resulting enhancement films drops at high concentrations of the QRs. The compatibility between the ligand shell on the QRs and the LCM plays an important role in avoiding this issue. Herein, several kinds of ligand shells on the rod-in-rod CdSe/CdS QRs are designed, without affecting the optical properties of QRs, and their compatibility with LCM molecules is studied. Promesogenic dendritic ligands in combination with relatively short alkylphosphonic acids are found to provide the highest optical quality, without QR aggregation, and so the high brightness of the resulting enhancement films, even at higher concentrations of QRs in LCM, which is perfectly suitable for the application in liquid crystal displays.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.