The technique used to align liquid crystals-rubbing the surface of a substrate on which a liquid crystal is subsequently deposited-has been perfected by the multibillion-dollar liquid-crystal display industry. However, it is widely recognized that a non-contact alignment technique would be highly desirable for future generations of large, high-resolution liquid-crystal displays. A number of alternative alignment techniques have been reported, but none of these have so far been implemented in large-scale manufacturing. Here, we report a non-contact alignment process, which uses low-energy ion beams impinging at a glancing angle on amorphous inorganic films, such as diamond-like carbon. Using this approach, we have produced both laptop and desktop displays in pilot-line manufacturing, and found that displays of higher quality and reliability could be made at a lower cost than the rubbing technique. The mechanism of alignment is explained by adopting a random network model of atomic arrangement in the inorganic films. Order is induced by exposure to an ion beam because unfavourably oriented rings of atoms are selectively destroyed. The planes of the remaining rings are predominantly parallel to the direction of the ion beam.

We used near-edge x-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy to link the orientational bond order at three carbonaceous surfaces-rubbed polyimide, ion beam-irradiated polyimide, and ion beam-irradiated diamondlike carbon films-with the direction of liquid crystal (LC) alignment on these surfaces. We show that, in general, LC alignment can be created on any carbonaceous substrate by inducing orientational order at its surface. Our results form the scientific basis for LC alignment layers consisting of amorphous carbon films in which orientational order near the surface is induced by a directional low-energy ion beam.

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We have found that liquid crystals can be aligned on a polyimide surface exposed to a low energy and neutral argon ion beam. The energy of the incident ions was varied between 75 eV and 500 eV, the integrated current density from 20 µA/cm2 to 500 µA/cm2, and the angle of incidence over which alignment was measured was between 10° and 80°. The pretilt angle of the liquid crystals could be varied between 0° and 10°, by controlling the processing conditions.

Here we report polarization-sensitive, thermal radiation measurements of individual, antenna-like, thin film Platinum nanoheaters. These heaters confine the lateral extent of the heated area to dimensions smaller (or comparable) to the thermal emission wavelengths. For very narrow heater structures the polarization of the thermal radiation shows a very high extinction ratio as well as a dipolar-like angular radiation pattern. A simple analysis of the radiation intensities suggests a significant enhancement of the thermal radiation for these very narrow heater structures.