We used a time-of-flight method to study the charge carrier mobility properties of a molecular-aligned discotic liquid crystal semiconductor based on Cu-phthalocyanine. The heated isotropic-phase semiconductor material was sandwiched between transparent electrodes coated onto glass substrates without conventional alignment layers. This was then cooled, and a discotic liquid crystal semiconductor cell was obtained, which we used to make mobility measurements. The material had a fixed molecular alignment due to the supercooling of the hexagonal columnar mesophase. It was clarified that the carrier mobility for electrons was as high as it was for holes at room temperature. The maximum value of negative charge mobility reached 2.60×10−3cm2∕Vs, although negative carrier mobility is often much lower than positive carrier mobility in other organic semiconductors, including conventional Cu-phthalocyanine vacuum-deposited films.

We report an abnormal alignment enhancement phenomenon of polymer molecules. The alignment order of a rigid-skeleton polymer made from a liquid crystalline monomer in a low-molecular-weight liquid crystal solvent was drastically enhanced with increasing temperature, even though the alignment order of the solution of the liquid crystal and monomer decreased. From polymer molecular alignment observations using polarizing Raman scattering microscopy, it was found that the polymer alignment order was three times greater than that of the original aligned monomer and polymer. This super alignment technique of polymer using a molecular-scaled self-assembly mechanism is applicable to the formation of electrically and/or optically functional nanopolymer wires.

The Fisher information matrix is employed in the gravitational-wave literature to quantify the statistical errors in estimating the parameters of gravitationalwave sources detectable by ground-based detectors. In particular, it is used to compute the lower bound on the variances of the parameters of the signals emitted by inspiralling compact binaries. However, the Fisher-matrix formalism is known to be valid in the strong-signal approximation only. Hence it is important to quantify the signal-to-noise ratio above which the Fisher information matrix is a reliable estimator, which can be done by performing numerical simulations. In this paper, we perform Monte Carlo simulations for the case of different source configurations of inspiralling compact binaries using 3.5 PN restricted post-Newtonian waveforms. We consider the initial LIGO design sensitivity curve. We found that for a (1.4, 10)M system, the Fisher information matrix predictions and those from Monte Carlo simulations are in very good agreement above a SNR of 20. We repeat the experiments for equal mass cases, namely a (1.4, 1.4)M and a (5, 5)M system. We found a systematic disagreement by a factor of 2 even at large SNRs (errors from the Fisher information matrix being higher). We have shown that by using templates with the symmetric mass ratio η > 0.25, the systematic disagreement vanishes in the regime of SNRs greater than 20.

This article discusses the mechanism of nematic liquid crystal alignment in stretched porous polymer films. The polymer films were formed by extreme stretching of an isotropic porous polyolefin, such that the draw ratio was 12:1. A 6-μm-thick porous film with a high porosity coefficient of 92% revealed fine string-shaped areas that exhibited optical anisotropy due to their possessing a high degree of molecular alignment. The porous film was filled with nematic liquid crystal and then the composite film was sandwiched between transparent electrodes coated onto glass substrates, without the use of conventional alignment layers. From polarizing microscopy observations it was found that the string-like polymer areas induce liquid crystal molecular alignment. The liquid crystal cells can exhibit an electrically controlled birefringence effect. This alignment technique enables us to realize three-dimensional control of liquid crystal alignment.

Abstract— A new flexible ferroelectric liquid‐crystal‐display device with gray‐scale capability has been created by using submicrometer‐diameter polymer fibers. The polymer fibers, which are formed by photopolymerization of aligned monomer molecules in liquid crystal, align the ferroelectric liquid crystal and mechanically support two flexible thin plastic substrates. The composite film made of liquid crystal and polymer with a thickness of 2 μm was formed between the plastic substrates by using a fabrication method consisting of coating, lamination, and ultraviolet irradiation processes without the conventional gap‐forming and injection processes. The fabricated flexible device revealed gray‐scale capability due to the change in spatial distribution of micrometer‐sized binary‐switching liquid‐crystal domains. From the polarizing microscope observation, it was found that the switching domains are generated and expanded from the areas with poor polymer density. The experimental results indicated that the polymer fibers spatially modulate the threshold voltage for molecular switching. Our device exhibits great potential for flexible large‐sized light‐weight motion‐image displays.