Liquid crystal molecular orientation properties of microrubbing cells and its application to electrically tunable grating

摘要

Liquid crystal (LC) gratings consisting of twisted nematic orientation domains have been demonstrated. The LC cells exhibited bistability in its LC molecular orientation behavior, which can be divided into two types of twist orientations; that is, ±90° or ±180° twist orientation states. The former can be produced by the nematic-isotropic phase transition (heating and cooling the LC cell). The latter is constantly obtained by a suitable voltage application. Based on this experimental result, switching scheme between these two orientation states were proposed. Furthermore, diffraction properties of the LC cell as a grating and the possibility as LC bistable grating were discussed.