Tunable pretilt angle based on gelator-doped planar liquid crystal cells

Abstract

This study demonstrates a simple approach for controlling the pretilt angles of liquid crystals (LCs) using gelator-doped cells fabricated with homogeneously aligned substrates. The competition between the gelator-induced spontaneous vertical alignment and planar alignment layer coated on the substrates results in various pretilt angles of LCs. The LC pretilt angle can thus be controlled from a homeotropic to planar state by adjusting the anchoring energy of the planar alignment layer and gelator concentration used for doping. A no-bias pi cell with multistable property is demonstrated by utilizing the proposed method.