Defect‐free half‐V‐mode ferroelectric liquid‐crystal device

Abstract

Abstract— The horizontal chevron defect found in a half‐V‐mode ferroelectric‐liquid‐crystal (HV‐FLC) device can be suppressed by lowering the FLC's total free energy. The energy levels between spontaneous polarization (PS) up and down domains were degenerated by asymmetrical‐alignment treatments. The difference in the polar surface coefficient (γ2) was the key to suppressing the alignment defect. Alignment layers with opposite surface polarities and different anchoring energies were applied to control the sign and value of γ2. The asymmetric cells of PIrub ‐ PIplasma (rubbed polyimide and plasma‐treated polyimide surfaces), PVArub ‐ PIplasma (rubbed polyvinyl alcohol and plasma‐treated polyimide surfaces), and PVArub ‐ PIplasma (both rubbed PI and PVA) alignment conditions presented defect‐free alignment textures under a slow‐cooling process. Among these different alignment treatments, the PVArub ‐ PIrub treated cell demonstrated the best alignment result, benefited by the largest difference in polar surface coefficient.

Pursuing High Quality Phase-Only Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) Devices

“…Ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) modulators [29,30] and digital micro-mirror devices (DMD) [31] are two commercial spatial light modulators capable of achieving sub-millisecond response [24]. Such a small panel size can be easily integrated into an optical machine or an embedded system.…”

“…Ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) modulators [29,30] and digital micro-mirror devices (DMD) [31] are two commercial spatial light modulators capable of achieving sub-millisecond response times. Significant quantization noise lowers the diffraction efficiency due to binary phase modulation.…”