We have fabricated twisted nematic cells doped by carbon nanotubes ͑CNTs͒. The CNTs with a minute amount of doping did not perturb the liquid crystal orientation in the off and on state. The hysteresis studies of voltage-dependent transmittance and capacitance under ac and dc electric field showed that the residual dc, which is related to an image sticking problem in liquid crystal displays, was greatly reduced due to the ion trapping by CNTs.

Highly efficient twisted nematic liquid crystal polarization gratings achieved by microrubbing Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 041107 (2012) A polarization-independent liquid crystal phase modulation using polymer-network liquid crystals in a 90° twisted cell J. Appl. Phys. 112, 024505 (2012) Fast switchable grating based on orthogonal photo alignments of ferroelectric liquid crystals Homogeneously aligned nematic liquid crystal ͑LC͒ cells doped with carbon nanotubes ͑CNTs͒ driven by an in-plane field were fabricated and their electro-optic characteristics were investigated. The effective cell retardation values showed no difference between doped and undoped LC cells in the absence of electric field. However, in the presence of electric field, it was smaller in the CNT-doped cell than in the undoped cell, resulting in the decrease of transmittance. Furthermore, the CNT-doped cell exhibited a slight increase in the driving voltage due to the increase of the twist elastic constant ͑K 22 ͒ and the decrease in the decay response time due to the decrease in the rotational viscosity ͑␥͒ and ␥ / K 22 compared to the undoped cell.

The alignment and dynamic response of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in nematic liquid crystal (NLC) medium induced by strong electric field have been observed through polarizing optical microscope. Density-functional calculations suggest that LC molecule anchors helically to the CNT wall to enhance π-stacking with a binding energy of nearly -2.0 eV due to a considerable amount of charge transfer from LC molecule to CNT, resulting in the formation of excess charges and permanent dipole moment in CNTs. Under strong electric field, the motion of CNTs distorted the director of adjacent LC molecules. Our detailed analysis of dynamics revealed that the four-lobe textures in vertical cell and two vertical stripes in in-plane switching cell were strongly correlated, i.e., the side view of textures by the vertical motion of CNTs in vertical cell was similar to the textures in in-plane switching cell. Interestingly, the magnitude of textures in microscope was strongly dependent on the size of CNTs and the applied field strength. The statistical size distribution of textures similar to that of CNTs provided information for the degree of dispersion of CNTs.

Effects of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the nematic backflow in a twisted nematic liquid crystal cell have been investigated. It has been reported that CNTs suppress the nematic backflow and thus the switching time is improved in case of low CNT doping such that it does not change the driving voltage. However, according to our studies, the presence of CNTs does not play a role in suppressing the nematic backflow.

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