In-plane bistable nematic liquid crystal devices based on nanoimprinted surface relief

Abstract

The authors present a bistable nematic device, using a fourfold symmetrical bidirection nanometer-scale surface grating fabricated by the nanoimprinting lithography. The bistability is achieved by a composite action between two orthogonal surface undulations, which tend to stabilize the nematic director along either of the two diagonal axes. The switching between the bistable states is easily driven by orthogonal in-plane electric fields. A recent model of groove-induced surface anchoring due to Fukuda et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 187803 (2007)] accounts for the azimuthal bistability in the present system.

Optical multi-stability of bimesogenic cholesteric liquid crystal

“…CLCs have many merits, such as low power consumption due to their bistability [1][2][3][4][5][6], simple LC cell structure, and enhanced brightness. They have been used mainly for outdoor reflective type displays [7][8][9][10].…”

Effect of thermal annealing on nanoimprinted Cu–Ni alloys using molecular dynamics simulation

“…Nanoimprinting lithography (NIL) is a revolutionary approach and can provide a simple operation, high replication, and lower cost technique through molding and printing processes under proper temperature and pressure conditions [1][2][3]. Over the past decade, it has been developed for various applications such as nano-fluidic devices, nano-optical devices, nano-electronic devices, and high-density data storage systems [4][5][6].…”

Bistable director alignments of nematic liquid crystals confined in frustrated substrates

“…With them, many types of structured surfaces for the liquid crystals and the resulting director alignments have been reported in the past few decades [9,11,23,[28][29][30][31]. For example, a striped surface, in which the homeotropic and planar anchorings appear alternatively, was used to control the polar angle of the director field in the bulk [32][33][34].…”

“…To sustain the deformed state, the external field has to be constantly applied to the liquid crystal substance. In order to reduce power consumption, a variety of liquid crystal systems showing multistable director configurations or storage effects have been developed [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. In such systems, a pulsed external field can induce permanent changes of the director configurations.…”

“…that sandwiched between two parallel plates with homeotropic anchoring, shows a unique stable director configuration if external fields are not imposed. By introducing elastic frustrations, the nematic liquid crystals can have different director configurations of equal or nearly equal elastic energy [8][9][10][11][21][22][23][24][25][26]. For instance, either of horizontal or vertical director orientation is possibly formed in nematic liquid crystals confined between two flat surfaces of uniformly tilted but oppositely directed anchoring alignments [8].…”