The domain mixing effect on the electro-optical properties of liquid crystals using polyimide doped with reactive mesogen

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the enhancement of the electro-optic (EO) properties of liquid crystal (LC) devices by the domain mixing effect of vertical-alignment polyimide (PI) doped with reactive mesogen (RM). The mixture of PI and RM on a glass substrate was exposed to ultraviolet light and was thermally annealed to produce circular microdomains of the LC polymer (LCP) in the PI background. Due to the appearance of such LCP microdomains depending on the RM doping concentration, the EO properties such as the threshold voltage and the response times were significantly improved in a vertically aligned configuration of the LCs.